


Attero Dominatus

by Dan_Francisco



Series: War Stories [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Abandon all fucking hope, Alternate Universe - World War II, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Drama, Gen, Horrors of War, Jack is not canonically in the army you nitwits, War, Ye Who Enter Here, period racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23079943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: Pearl Harbor is attacked. Two men – Jack Morrison from Indiana and Gabriel Reyes from California – join the Navy and Marine Corps, respectively, more than willing to bring the fight back to the Japanese. The two men will fight vastly different wars, though the challenges they face will be the same, from zealous Japanese sailors and airmen more than ready to die for the Emperor to the ever-present danger of losing friends.Across the Pacific, Lieutenant Genji Shimada prepares for war with the sleeping giant, with orders to take command of his Special Naval Landing Force detachment to oppose the enemies of the Emperor and Japan. Though a veteran of the war in China, the advancing Americans may yet test his own commitment to his duty, as well as how far he’s willing to go to see the war finished.
Series: War Stories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1386268
Comments: 21
Kudos: 6





	1. Semper Fidelis

To many, the way a man reacts to adversity is a testament to his character.

For instance, the general public considers it honorable to take up arms to defend the nation. When tragedy strikes a nation, the people look to the men in uniform, asks themselves “Who will help us?” The fear, the anger of an inciting incident fades away, is washed out with the dirt, grime and blood of that tragic event by the sight of a million young men in uniform. The whites, blacks, browns, grays and golds come together to ease the collective consciousness, give the people an easy rest for at least one evening.

However, few tend to think of the men who are stuffed into these uniforms. They only know them as defenders of the land, and unless they personally know a son or brother or friend who’s taken up the uniform, they remain a nebulous, enigmatic figure. The people thank “the troops” without having ever known who “the troops” are.

On the morning of December 7th, 1941, most Americans were peacefully asleep, or just beginning their day. For those on the island of Honolulu, and especially the sailors and airmen who inhabited Pearl Harbor, their day seemed to be wide open. Church hadn’t yet gotten out, breakfast was done and over, and aside from general duties, there was little to do. Hopes of a lazy Sunday were dashed when from the skies, Japanese warplanes struck the harbor, sinking six ships, damaging fifteen, destroying nearly two hundred aircraft and killing over 2,400 Americans.

For two men on the opposite ends of America, this day – which the President himself called a day of infamy – had a profound effect on the rest of their lives. These two men – Gabriel Reyes from California, and Jack Morrison from Indiana – walked into the military recruiting offices and sought a uniform. Neither man knew it, but they were about to participate in one of the most brutal wars known to humanity.

These men could not be more different. Where Jack represented the men that had built the nation – an honest, hardworking farmhand who rarely strayed from his home or his grandfather’s politics – Gabriel was the man that would take America forward; a cosmopolitan liberal that abhorred the status quo and sought to change the world. Despite having never even seen a boat in his life, Jack Morrison marched into the Navy’s recruiting office, while Gabriel Reyes decided to join the Marines.

Training was difficult for both men. They passed their physicals with flying colors, of course, each one having done their own work to build themselves into the sort of healthy, strong Americans that any doctor around the country would be thrilled to see. Each man struggled in their own way – Jack routinely failed uniform inspections. Gabriel just couldn’t remember his General Orders. Marching without managing to fall in holes proved to be a weak spot for both of them.

In spite of their struggles, the two men survived their training, graduating to become full members of their respective branches. While their choice of service meant that their roles in the war would differ, their theater would not. Both Jack and Gabriel would see service in the Pacific, destined to fight the Japanese. Jack saw it as inevitable, another long list of duties that he, as an American man, had to undertake. Gabriel believed it destiny, the chance to take revenge upon those who had spat upon the flag that he wrapped himself in every night as he went to sleep.

Therefore, in mid 1942, the two men boarded their respective ships, and headed out into the vast Pacific Ocean. In betrayal of its namesake, the dark clouds of war hung over the seemingly endless sea, concealing what was in store for the two men. Their sergeants and petty officers had told them the Japanese were brutal, that they showed no mercy. Their enemy was well-trained and battle-hardened, they were told, he would fight savagely.

In May of 1942, Gabriel Reyes arrived with the 2nd Marine Division in New Zealand, while Jack Morrison, aboard DD-76, better known as USS _Phillip,_ set sail for Midway Island. The excitement was there every time the two men stepped out on deck to breathe in the salty ocean air, in every meal they ate, in their dreams. Both Jack and Gabe went to bed hoping tomorrow would be the day. Jack watched and waited from the deck. Gabriel hoped he would finally stop the exercises and get the orders to invade an island.

* * *

Just as this was happening, so too did two men across the Pacific begin a new stage in their war. The Empire of Japan had been at war since 1937, when Japanese and Chinese troops first exchanged heated gunshots across the Marco Polo Bridge. The weakened Republic stood up to the might of an Empire, vowing it would never fall to the devils across the ocean as the confused skirmish transformed overnight into a full-fledged war.

In the Shōwa Emperor’s Japan, military life was seen as honorable and just. It was an extension of the samurai era, where the brave warriors of Japan took up their weapons and armor to destroy their enemies in a divine wind, if not a literal one then at least metaphorically. Genji Shimada was one of many such young men, who had abandoned his comfortable life as son of a successful businessman and heir apparent to the Shimada _zaibatsu_ to join the Imperial Japanese Navy. As a minor playboy in his former life, a carefree spirit and wanderlust had called him to the naval life, seeking out the grand battleships and ocean blue.

When he learned of an elite within the navy, a cadre of sailors who fought not with the largest batteries from kilometers away, but with a rifle and bayonet upon the shore, the choice was clear. Genji sought to join their ranks, and with his background and clear swordsmanship skills, he was a shoe-in for officer candidate. Within the year, Genji had command of his own unit, a company of elite soldiers like him more than ready to serve the Emperor. When the Emperor asked them to jump, they asked how high.

Likewise, Ikki Masuyama, a philosopher-soldier stylizing himself as Zenyatta the deeper and deeper he plunged himself into the tenets of Buddhism, began the journey to war as well. He wept for the Empire of Japan and the Americans who had lost their lives during the attack on Pearl Harbor when it was revealed on Japanese national media. He further prayed for the safety of all future men who would no doubt soon be finding themselves in conflict at the front lines in the Pacific, hoping that the conclusion of the war would be swift and without much bloodshed.

These two men found their paths converging when they reported to the same commanding officer, Captain Kyoden Yada. Captain Yada saw great promise in Lieutenant Shimada, especially as a brave leader to see men into battle against the savage Americans, while in Lieutenant Masuyama, he foresaw a means to temper to the usual soldier’s dirty business of brutally fighting war. Through these two men, Captain Yada concluded, he could ensure Japan’s victory when the Americans came.

As loyal subjects of the Emperor, Genji and Zenyatta went wherever their Emperor pleased, whenever he pleased. It was such that when the campaigns began, their war took them across the islands and shores of the southeast Asian region, from Singapore to Malaya, seizing the initiative from the Americans and their British, Dutch, and Australian allies faster than could be comprehended. Genji celebrated victory after victory, while Zenyatta quietly meditated and prayed over the enemy and Japanese dead alike.

The stage was set for a showdown in the Pacific between the United States and the Empire of Japan.


	2. Bomb-run Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack sets sail in the Pacific, heading for Midway. Gabriel lands on Guadalcanal.

_Warfare is of vital importance to the state. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. - Sun Tzu_

_June 3 rd, 1942_

_1228 hours_

_Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean_

The ocean mist sprayed on John “Jack” Francis Morrison’s face as he stared out at the rolling sea. His ship, DD-76, far better known as the USS _Phillip,_ slowly shifted and rocked as she sailed the Pacific. He vaguely remembered hearing about orders to ship out to Japanese-held islands, but in the meanwhile speculation had run rampant. A lot of his buddies on the _Phillip_ figured they’d be heading straight to the Philippines, on a one-way trip to start landing ashore and freeing everybody MacArthur had left behind. Jack had read a lot of things in _Stars and Stripes_ in between drills. A lot of it was stuff about the Japs capturing this island or that atoll, far-away places that the paper said were part of the United States, but Jack had never heard of half of these islands before. Heck, San Diego was the furthest from home he had ever gotten.

Well, at least until now. He had no heavenly idea where in the world he was, aside from far away from Hawaii. Honestly, the clouds looked like they had back on Grandpa’s farm in Indiana. The night sky looked about the same. Even the rising morning sun, that a lot of the guys from bigger cities like Wilmington and Jacksonville said was the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen, looked exactly the same as when Jack woke up to do his chores. He didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

Jack blinked, sighing as the ocean remained unchanging in front of him. The way they treated it in the training films and how the chiefs always gave him hell at Great Lakes, watch was the single most important thing in the world. But right now, he was just bored out of his skull. Nothing else was as singularly boring as this. Sometimes, his heart would race when he thought he saw a Jap periscope peek up from the depths, but this far away from _anything_ he didn’t think of it. He wasn’t about to sound the alarm because he thought he saw something – one of his buddies had done that not even two hours away from port in Honolulu, and he had earned the nickname “False-Alarm Frank” for it. Jack hadn’t gotten one of these “creative” nicknames yet, but he was sure he’d get one sooner rather than later.

Forehead felt hot. He reached a hand up to his cover, the ubiquitous “Dixie cup” as everybody called it, moving it only slightly up to rub at his forehead. Still hot. He wasn’t sure what this was, except maybe… oh yeah, right. Sunburn. He had heard people talking about it, including a diatribe from one of the chiefs how if he caught anyone with a “seriously bad” sunburn, he’d dock that man’s pay. The usual threat was a week’s pay, but Jack wasn’t sure if he actually meant that. What kind of charge was that, anyway, to take away a man’s money because he got a sunburn? He heard that Chief O’Malley considered it abuse of government property, a term he supposedly had put in a report that was approved by the Captain. Then again, all that sort of scuttlebutt he never paid attention to, and why should he? Jack wasn’t here to think about what chiefs and captains did. He was here to shoot some Japs.

Though right now, all he really wanted was some food. He had neglected breakfast that day, practically rolling out of bed to go on watch. Mannschmidt, their cook, prided himself on making bagels from scratch. If there was one thing Jack could count on while aboard this ship, it was that Mannschmidt could be relied upon to deliver a wide variety of kosher meals for them, even if he was the only one who ever cared about _staying_ kosher. Granted, this never stopped him from rolling out bacon for them on the rare occasion, but it did mean he never actually knew if it was good or not, and Mannschmidt was a man who loved his food. He’d kill for a good bagel, even if he had to put up with the concoction they called peanut butter on this ship. Even something as simple as the cereal they had on-hand or just a decently-cooked egg.

In the blink of an eye, though, his dreams of food were taken away by the sight of the ocean in front of him again. He look at his watch, hoping that the hours had ticked down enough for him to relax and seek out relief. No such luck for him today. The dull, distant sound of aircraft engines drew his attention skyward. Big planes, probably B-17s judging by the outline, were grouped up in a formation heading to some target to Jack’s left. _Weird,_ he thought, shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t think they had the range to get anywhere to do some damage. Well, maybe that skepticism about the Army Air Force’s abilities was why he was down on this ship, staring at an unchanging ocean and occasionally playing pretend with the 20mm, and not flying a plane. Then again, he didn’t have the eyesight to be a pilot either. Jack started to wonder about his buddy from back home, Harry, who had declared he’d be the best fighter ace since the Red Baron. He’d gone off and joined the Army to fly planes for them, with that cocky attitude of his and winking smile that got him all the girls back home.

Jack hated that guy’s guts.

* * *

_June 4 th, 1942_

_0710 hours_

_Somewhere near Midway Island_

_“This is not a drill,”_ blared the USS _Phillip_ ’s intercom. “ _This is not a drill! General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations._ ”

Jack’s eyes ripped open as the alert rang in his ears. What sounded like hundreds of boots bounced and clattered on the deck above and below him, not to mention the pounding that accompanied the guys running down the hall on his left. Somewhere out on deck, a bell was ringing, as if calling them to church in the morning. He rubbed his eyes, any lethargy that might have occupied him rapidly retreating as he slid out of his bunk. As he ran down the hall to head topside, somebody was handing out helmets. “The Japs’ll get you with shrapnel!” someone shouted. Jack decided to trade his Dixie cup for the heavy steel helmet. May as well. Better safe than sorry, after all.

The pounding noise didn’t cease as he reached the open air. The light blinded him for a second, and the helmet he was wearing seemed like the heaviest thing in the world. Still, he headed down the ship towards his assigned gun spot, manning the 20mm gun with his buddy, Thomas Blackwell. Blackwell was a fellow from Oregon, had grown up in Seattle before joining up with the Navy. His blond hair was hidden by the Dixie cup as Jack scrambled up, a simple slap on the back their only greeting today. Jack chambered a round in the 20mm, which responded exactly as it should with a heavy, mechanical clanking noise. Now loaded and ready to fire, he scanned the skies, trying to find _something_ to tell him the Japs were here.

“I don’t see anything,” he said, squinting at the clouds. “What’s supposed to be going on?”

“You hear battle stations and you’re gonna sit around and ask what you’re supposed to _do,_ Morrison?” Blackwell asked, stacking magazines for the gun next to him. “Come on, just shoot at any plane that doesn’t have a star on it. You know what a star is, right?”

“I know a star from the flaming red asshole Jap planes got,” Jack replied, still unable to see much of anything other than planes from the nearby _Yorktown_ taking off. Someone said that a patrol had found the main Jap force. Maybe that’s what they were after. He swiveled the gun back and forth, hearing it creak against the mount as he fruitlessly sought out a target. Nothing so far. Jack began to think that this was just a cruel joke that Chief Williams was playing on them.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed before dull gray spots on the horizon caught his attention. Looked like they were heading back to the _Yorktown,_ but something was off about these planes. He didn’t know that anybody painted their planes gray. Was this some kind of special thing he didn’t know about? It didn’t look like the blue he knew from Navy airplanes.

“Oh, shit!” Blackwell shouted, punching Jack in the shoulder. “Jap planes!”

Blinking, Jack swiveled the gun around, trying to find the right lead to fire on the Japanese planes. Hell, that looked about right. He squeezed the trigger, feeling the entire platform shake under his feet as he tracked the enemy planes. All around them, black puffs of smoke popped up, signs of friendly anti-air batteries firing. It didn’t much feel like his shots were doing anything. Did he have the right lead?

One of the Jap planes banked hard, throwing that question out the window. Another one on the same path that he had been shooting at suddenly became engulfed in flames, spiraling out of control and slamming into the ocean. The 20 chunked forward, clicking heavily. Out of ammo. He knocked the magazine off, with Blackwell shoving a new one in just as fast. A massive booming noise echoed from the _Yorktown’_ s general direction, with an accompanying splash. Was that one of the Jap planes crashing into the ocean, or something else? Swallowing his fear, Jack turned back to the oncoming wave of Jap planes, firing off burst after burst of 20mm rounds. He could only hope some of them landed, or at least freaked the Jap out enough to get him to fly away. It felt like just mere minutes, this constant fight of shooting at elusive gray splotches and shoving new magazines in, but when he checked his watch during a pause in the attack, it had been nearly half an hour. Looked like the Japs were breaking off for now, heading back to their carrier.

“Good shooting, Morrison,” Blackwell said, kicking away an empty magazine. “Chalk one up for you?”

“I think so,” Jack replied, rolling his shoulders back. “Was that it?”

The way Blackwell stared at the sky told him no. Jack turned back, following Blackwell’s gaze until he spotted another wave of Japanese planes flying their way. They were chasing Navy planes on their way back to the _Yorktown,_ prompting Jack to hastily get back on his gun and send shells skyward. The recoil impulse was nothing more than a mere annoyance now as he watched huge black puffs fill the sky. Despite all his effort and the shells he tossed upwards, the Jap planes dived down. One after the other, explosions cascaded up from the _Yorktown,_ probably from the flight deck. Chunks of steel launched up in the air, falling down around her almost like feathers gliding through the wind.

“Holy _shit!_ ” Blackwell yelled. “Did you see that, Morrison?!”

“Of course I saw it, do you think I’m blind?!” Jack shouted back, tracking another Jap plane making an attack run. The wing broke off, forcing it to fall into the sea. Whether it had been caused by his gun or not, he didn’t know. The threat seemed over, for now at least. He had a sneaking suspicion they’d be back, though. While the _Yorktown_ began to put out fires and deal with the damage, Jack and Blackwell tended to their own ship. The USS _Phillip_ had not been damaged, but she did have a smattering of casings and other battle debris all across her deck. Jack could only watch as a deckhand swept the brass clear, occasionally kicking a few down with his foot as Blackwell headed out to retrieve more ammo. They had nearly depleted seven full magazines fighting the Jap planes. If they came back, Jack was inclined to have more rounds on hand.

“Hey, Morrison,” Blackwell asked, spooling up rounds in one of their empty magazine. “What do you figure you’ll do when the war’s over?”

Jack blew a hefty huff of air our his mouth, shrugging. “Seems a bit early to be thinking about the end of the war, don’t you think?”

“Eh, maybe,” Blackwell said, not taking his eyes off his task. With it calming down at least some, he had taken off his hat, setting it to the side as he worked. “I dunno, it’s fun to think about, you know? You gonna go back to your dad’s farm?”

“Grandpa’s, and maybe. Farming’s about the only thing I know how to do.”

“Hey, Navy taught you _something._ After all, you know how to fix up this gun.”

Jack laughed, smiling as he looked out to the sea. “Yeah, lot of good that’ll do when the war’s over. Farming’s good work, as long as I’ve got somewhere to do it.”

“Are you saying killing Japs isn’t honest work?” Blackwell asked, pausing to extract a small, rectangular box from his pocket. Box of Camels. “Want a smoke?”

He’d never much been a smoker back home – never even knew it was an option, actually – but it was a bad habit he’d picked up in San Diego when someone offered him an easy way to relieve boredom and get out of duty for a little while. Since then, smoking had become the go-to way to get a minute alone and, at least temporarily, kick out any built-up stress. Jack shrugged, taking the cigarette from Blackwell, already lit up for him.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Jack said, taking a drag as he looked out at the sea. “I’m not saying it’s _not_ honest work. If I could, I’d give every Jap from here to Tokyo a good beating myself. But that doesn’t mean much if the war ends.”

Blackwell nodded. Soon enough, the sound of rounds being placed delicately in magazines could be heard, a soft metal-on-metal noise that Jack soon paid no further mind to. “I think I’d want to open up a restaurant,” he said out of the blue. “Tommy’s Diner, ain’t that a good name?”

“What kinda food would you sell?”

“I dunno. Potatoes, I guess. Maybe some roast beef. Yeah, that’d be pretty good. My mom has this really good chicken pot pie recipe, oh _man,_ you’d think you died and gone to heaven if you ever ate it, Morrison.”

“Hm,” Jack said, nodding. “Remind me to visit your mom’s house in Seattle sometime, then.”

Blackwell was about to reply, when more dull roars filled the air. Jack strained his eyes against the sun, trying to spot where the noise was coming from. More Jap planes, maybe? Blackwell sped up in loading new magazines, checking the one that was already in. Looked full, but Jack was more worried about the incoming planes. More gray blotches, definitely Jap planes. Looked like at least a dozen, if not more. Jack started firing, even as Blackwell cursed a blue streak that he was just getting comfortable. The same black clouds appeared in the air, fading in and out with each new burst. The Jap planes dipped low, slowly falling out of the sky and slamming into the ocean with majestic bursts of water as they were shot down one by one. However, two big ones kept flying ahead, twin elongated objects falling into the water and disappearing from sight. Jack immediately knew what it was. Jap torpedoes were now heading straight for the _Yorktown,_ and there was nothing he could do about it.

A massive geyser erupted from the _Yorktown_ ’s waterline, soon followed up by a second one. Jack could do little else but keep shooting at the retreating Jap planes, hoping he knocked down at least one or two in revenge for hitting his navy’s carrier. By the time the planes had been chased off and he looked over to the twice-wounded carrier again, she had developed a pronounced list to port. It looked like she was dead in the water. Something was going on, but he couldn’t tell what. Were people jumping off the _Yorktown,_ rather willing to risk themselves in the choppy ocean than stay on board?

“Jesus Christ,” Jack muttered, staring at the critically wounded ship. “Think there’s anything we can do?”

“I dunno… wonder if we’ll steam over, pick some of those guys up.”

He shook his head, unable to keep his eyes off the sight in front of him. The call came to stand down, finally a chance to calm down and relax a little. Jack and Blackwell headed below decks, trying to ignore the chaos they had just witnessed. Blackwell announced he was heading to his bunk to sleep it off, while Jack headed to the galley. May as well find something decent to eat. Still, he played that second attack over and over in his head. If he had been quicker on the draw, gotten his lead right, maybe he could have shot down those Jap dive bombers. Maybe he’d have shot down some of those planes carrying torpedoes. Maybe then, the _Yorktown_ wouldn’t have gotten hit.

Jack sighed, asking Mannschmidt for a decent sandwich. He happily obliged, slapping together a handful of random ingredients, mostly cold cuts and cheeses he had on-hand, sliding it over to Jack in less than a minute. Looked like he had found some lettuce to add to it as well. With a barely-heard thanks, Jack headed off to find an empty table to eat in peace. Barely two bites in, somebody else had decided to sit opposite of him. Whatever hair the other fellow had left was dark, probably close to black. He had piercing dark eyes as well, that seemed to be analyzing him.

“Afternoon,” Jack muttered.

“Hey,” the unknown man said. Wasn’t a superior. Fellow looked about same rank as Jack was. “Heard we knocked down a few Jap planes up there.”

Furrowing his brow, Jack blinked, giving the guy a strange look. That was _one_ way to open a conversation. “Uh, yeah. Sorry, do I know you?”

“Probably not. Name’s Vincent Fontana, you might’ve seen me sweeping up the deck earlier.”

“Jack Morrison,” he said, extending a free hand. Vincent took it, giving him a firm handshake. “Deck ape, huh?”

Vincent laughed, nodding as he attacked a bowl of some kind of soup. “Hey, work’s work. Doing my part, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jack muttered, polishing off the sandwich. Something about the way Vincent carried himself, even just sitting down eating lunch, drew Jack to him. He seemed like a decent fellow, the kind of guy Jack could see himself hanging around with. “Hey, I’m gonna go hit the sack, but I’ll see you around, yeah?”

Vincent looked up at him, nodding with a smile on his face. “Yeah, sure. Maybe we can play cards sometime, yeah?”

“I don’t gamble,” Jack replied, wincing. “Not my kind of thing.”

“Hey, doesn’t have to be gambling,” Vincent said, shrugging. “You ever played cards before?”

Jack had to admit he hadn’t. Pop had never let him out of the house without his chores done, and besides, his friends had never much been into that. They preferred to go around town, causing havoc and getting into the usual teenager trouble that marked his life before Pearl Harbor.

This didn’t seem to trouble Vincent, though. He shrugged, stirring around his food. “You’ll like it. See you around, Morrison.”

* * *

_August 7 th, 1942_

_0907 hours_

_Near Guadalcanal_

The ocean belched spray up around the sides of the LVT, amounting to about what Gabriel Reyes felt like was being flicked with water by some punk kid. He shuddered, the chilly air biting at him despite the herringbone uniform he wore, weighed down with his bandoleer. The Springfield in his hands felt heavy, but he wasn’t sure why. It was the same rifle he had carried with him since boot camp, so why the hell did it feel heavy? Was it a physical manifestation of the anxiety he was feeling? He couldn’t tell, and that bothered him.

Just ahead in the LVT, Sergeant Hector Morrish turned around, readjusting his helmet. “Listen up,” he shouted, eyeing them with a critical look on his face. “Japs have been pounded by the navy all morning! Our objective’s the airfield three miles inland. We take that, we give our planes a place to land so we can keep killing more Japs! Any questions?”

Gabriel shook his head, tightening the grip on his rifle. He took a short breath, staring at the approaching treeline from Guadalcanal. They’d be on the beach soon. Didn’t look like anyone else had questions, and why should they? Their mission was pretty simple – go and kill every single Jap on this island. Anything else, in Gabriel’s mind at least, was secondary. Capture the airfield, sure. Knock out some dug-in Jap squad that didn’t know how to surrender? Let’s do it. He had heard the sergeants talking, how they said the Japs never surrendered. Well, they wanted to die for their Emperor or whatever? He’d happily oblige them.

The LVT shuddered as they hit the beach, with the ramp slamming down on the sand. They rushed out, pounding the steel and subsequent soft sand. Gabriel dived down, becoming as small as possible since nearly everyone expected that they’d be fired upon by no less than seven Jap machine guns upon stepping out of the transport. To be met with silence was… discomforting, to say the least. He couldn’t help but look around nervously, trying to figure out if this was some sort of elaborate ruse, or if the Japanese really weren’t here at all. Waves lapped on the shore, with motors running behind him that signaled the arrival of more Marines. One by one, the waves of infantry crashed in along with the water, stopping just as quickly as he and his squad had.

Gabriel swallowed hard, refocusing his sights on the treeline ahead of him. Slowly, Sgt. Morrish stood up, gesturing for them to follow him. Bits of sand stuck to Gabriel’s rifle as he pushed himself off the ground, cautiously advancing behind the Sarge. Ahead of him, the jungle seemed to trill with all sorts of strange beings and bugs. Still, he was following the Sarge, and he seemed like he was confident in where they were going. Another five minutes into the jungle, where Gabriel found himself tripping over low-lying underbrush, and they had stopped again. Nobody dared to ask whether the Japanese were watching them from behind, waiting with bayonets fixed to stab them in the back when the Marines thought they were safe.

The sun disappeared as they headed deeper inland, on another leg of their start-stop advance. His rifle still felt heavy, each movement like his arms weighed a million pounds. The canopy darkened every corner of the jungle even in the morning, making already cautious Marines even more cautious than usual. Gabriel thought he saw Jap rifle muzzles in every little bush, the glimmers of tripwires across all the tree trunks, and hidden mines underneath palm fronds.

Behind him, he heard a dull buzzing noise. Sounded loud. What the hell was that? Were those planes? Next to him, one of the few Marines Gabriel had made friends with, Samuel Pilosyan, winced his face as he looked around. “Hey, you guys hear that?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel replied. “What is it?”

Sgt. Morrish frowned, probably about to tell them to shut the hell up, until he blinked. His brow furrowed, soon replaced by a wide-eyed stare. “Jap planes! Take cover!”

Confused shouts and yelling soon consumed the corner of Guadalcanal that they now occupied as they dove for any sort of cover that offered protection against unclear Jap threats. Gabriel wasn’t sure if the Jap planes had just machine guns or if they had larger cannons, but he wasn’t about to stand in the open like an idiot and get his head blown off for it. Back where the beach was, roundabout where he had been maybe about half an hour ago, he heard explosions. Shouting emanated from the landing zone, along with scattered rifle fire. Maybe they were trying to shoot at the Jap planes, if they were low enough.

He scanned ahead, left, right, up and even down, as if the Japs had shrunk down and were about to stab him to death with tiny bayonets like picadores. No sign of any Japanese soldiers anywhere. No sight of rifles poking out from bushes. Not even a hint of danger ahead of him. Part of him was upset – after all, he thought he’d be going out to kill Japanese, not take some unoccupied island in the middle of nowhere. And yet, another part of him was relieved, at least partially. No chance of dying today.

Somebody came around, ordering them to head back to the beach. Gabriel and his squad broke from the jungle line, spotting one of their transports sitting off Guadalcanal, a pillar of smoke and flames rising off the deck. He muttered a small prayer alongside dejected murmurs from fellow squadmates, before they were ordered to help shuttle supplies further ashore. Thus, they temporarily put away their rifles and started moving boxes and barrels inland, with Gabriel lugging up a box that apparently had shells for a gun he wasn’t sure they even _had._

They piled the supplies up in a nice stack in the middle of the perimeter, defined by the Tenaru River to their west and the Ilu River to the east. When they finished stacking up the haphazardly dropped supplies, the order came down to dig in. Gabriel’s squad didn’t move again for the rest of the day, ordered to keep watch over the Tenaru River. As night fell, Gabriel and Pilosyan watched tracers and explosions pop up off-shore, the result of some kind of battle between their navy and the Jap navy. He couldn’t tell who was winning.

* * *

_August 8 th, 1942_

_0637 hours_

_Guadalcanal_

The order to move out came early in the morning, before anyone had even gotten the chance to eat breakfast. A standard spread was ordered as they trundled back over familiar ground, with eyes set for any sign of the Japs. By now, the Sarge argued, the Japs weren’t going to be content to just sit around and wait for them to come. Pilosyan swore up and down that he could hear Japanese in every single tree, aiming his rifle at every bush he considered a threat. Gabriel tried to listen for the sounds his buddy heard, but the clatter of their equipment made it nearly impossible to hear any whispered Japanese, if it existed in the first place. They had good reason to be nervous, after all. Their transport had burned all night, and she refused to sink or go down quietly. Before they had left for this morning’s mission, he had seen some other ships roll up to the beleaguered transport, moving men across to see if they could stop the raging inferno.

“River up ahead,” Sgt Morrish called. “Hope y’all are ready to get your boots wet.”

Gabriel glanced up from checking the underbrush for hidden traps. This was some kind of river, he’d heard the name before but had forgotten it since. Water looked like it was flowing pretty smoothly, all things considered. If it didn’t look like the same shit that plagued the sewer line near the apartment block he lived in in Los Angeles, it might make decent drinking water. Just as Gabriel dipped his foot in to start crossing, a gunshot rang out. Definitely not friendly. He sprinted away from the water as if it had fired the shot, taking cover behind a tree that looked solid enough.

“Where the fuck’s that shooter?!” Hirsch shouted, aiming his rifle at shadows across the river.

Another shot echoed, a patch of dirt flying up just in front of Pilosyan’s little corner of earth. “Fuck!”

“Shoot back, goddammit!” Sgt. Morrish yelled, taking the initiative.

Well, no time like now to finally take the fight back to the Japs. Gabriel lined up his sights on where he figured the Japs were, shooting off five rounds at a bush that he imagined held a machine gun team just waiting for them to get comfortable and cross the river again. Now empty, Gabriel pulled back the bolt, digging out another clip of ammo from his belt and shoving it into the receiver. Just as soon as he had done this, Sarge called cease-fire. The air was thick with tension and the smell of gunpowder as they waited for any sign of the Japs. Two minutes passed, with no further fire. Cautiously, they crossed the river, this time without incident.

Gabriel advanced upon the suspected Japanese position, cautiously approaching the cluster of thick bushes. He crept low along the ground, afraid that at any second he’d hear a grenade roll down towards him. At the last possible moment, he jumped up, bayonet and rifle at the ready. However, he was soon face to face with an empty outpost. Either the Japanese had slipped out after firing on them, or they were never here in the first place and were shooting at them from somewhere else. Gabriel wasn’t sure he liked either answer.

“Well?!” Sgt. Morrish called. “Are we good or what?!”

“Yeah, all clear!” Gabriel shouted back. He shook his head, looking out on the rest of the path they were to take. Looked like the Jap airfield was just ahead. Behind him, the familiar clanking of rifles, webbing, and straps slapping against themselves grew closer, until Sgt. Morrish and most of the squad had passed him by. Pilosyan stepped next to him, looking at the improvised fighting position.

“Huh,” he muttered, staring at the airfield. “That’s a lot bigger than the dirt patch they told us it was.”

Gabriel grumbled, stepping over the sandbags to start marching to the airfield. Lot of abandoned Jap camps around. The airfield was dotted with equally abandoned construction equipment, as well as some trucks that were painted a light olive drab. Silently, he wondered if they had even bothered to leave behind anything else, like booby traps. Maybe he was being overly paranoid, but hey, he’d do it if he was organizing a retreat.

“Reyes, Pilosyan! Go check out that Jap camp!” Sarge gestured vaguely to a dug-out not too far away from the end of the airfield, with little half-tents still standing that surrounded the remains of a fire pit. He nodded, heading over with Pilosyan, a sense of unease coming over him.

“Think we’ll find any souvenirs here?” Pilosyan asked, opening up one of the flap tents with his rifle.

Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head. “Not unless you think you can drive one of those Jap trucks back stateside.”

Pilosyan perked up, blinking as he stared at Reyes. “Figure Top will let me do that?”

“You have a better chance of getting him to admit he actually likes C-rations.”

He kicked over tarp that covered a pile of random boxes, haphazardly tossed together. It looked like the Japs had left in a hell of a hurry, judging by the amount of junk they left behind. Maybe some of this was ammo, not that it’d be any useful to them. He could see where they had set up machine guns, dug pits to run between small dugouts like this undetected. Gabriel shuddered to think what it’d be like if they had to take this airfield by force, there were a _lot_ of good fields of fire all around. Any approach against a dug-in Jap foe would be damn near suicide.

“Oh shit, we got some rice here,” Pilosyan muttered, having found a decently-sized bag of the white stuff.

Gabriel arched an eyebrow, looking at him askance. “You’re gonna eat Jap food?”

“Well, why not?” Pilosyan asked, shrugging. “They haven’t had time to try and poison it or whatever, right?”

“Maybe you should think about why they _left_ it here in the first place, genius.”

Pilosyan chuckled, gesturing to the abandoned dugout around them. “Come on Reyes, they ran out of here pretty quick. I don’t think they wanted to carry this, is all. Hey, Sarge, check this out!”

Before he could even provide a decent counterargument, Pilosyan had taken off with the bag, excitedly showing it to the Sarge like he was a kid finding a cool bug on the ground. Gabriel rolled his eyes, shaking his head. Camp was clear anyway, no Japs or booby traps to be found. May as well head back and join the squad. Now with the airfield more or less secured, Sgt. Morrish ordered them to take the Jap dugouts for their own, and work on improving them. They’d taken the airfield, now they just had to hold it in case the Japs decided they wanted it back.


	3. Guadalcanal By Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lt. Genji Shimada lands on Guadalcanal with his Special Naval Landing Force company.

_Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows. So too does the soldier work out his victory in relation to the foe he is facing. - Sun Tzu_

_August 19 th, 1942_

_0108 hours_

_Somewhere on Guadalcanal_

The cool night air passed over Lieutenant Genji Shimada’s exposed skin, providing at least some relief from the burden of being stuffed into a destroyer all night. The ‘Rat Transportation,’ the popular name for their Navy’s work in resupplying and transporting new reinforcements to Guadalcanal, had but one drawback – each man had to be packed into ships wholly unfit for transporting them. He was not inclined to think about how long he had spent on the ship, subjected to terrible conditions and not even enough space to stretch himself out, much less sleep comfortably. Therefore, when landing on Guadalcanal and knowing the open land and fresh air awaited him, Genji first took a walk. He stayed close to the landing zone, not just because of a fear of becoming lost in the vast jungle depths of the island, but also just in case he was needed to oversee the landing and transfer of troops ashore.

Of course, he would be in a much better mood about all of this if this accursed warrior-monk had not decided to join him. He did not particularly _dislike_ Lieutenant Ikki Masuyama – apart from his perpetual habit of asking others to refer to him as Zenyatta – but Genji could not say he _cared_ for the man either. His musings on life and philosophy, sprinkled in between Buddhist teachings that Genji only partially recalled from his school days, were annoying at best, outright seditious at worst. On one hand, as a loyal soldier of the Emperor, it was his duty to protect the Emperor’s honor. And yet, every time he thought of raising his sword, the same katana that had been in his family for generations since the Sengoku period, his hand managed to be stayed by either a wry smile or a blunt “But what do I know?” from Zenyatta.

The jungle trilled, even in the dead of night with virtually no light to see from. Part of him wished he could smoke, but he knew when it was this dark, even the glow from something as small as a cigarette would serve as a beacon, a targeting flare for any Yankee plane or ship that was inclined to practice their gunnery skills. That was the one thing he missed about fighting the Chinese – devious bastards they were, at least he could rely on them not to fly planes to bomb him overnight. No, the most the Chinese would ever do to him was lead him to believe he had ever fully cleared an area, only to find a way to flood it the next morning with thousands more troops.

“Is something on your mind, Lieutenant Shimada?” Zenyatta asked, deftly walking over the broken branches and rocky path as if it was as even as a temple floor.

“No,” Genji said. In truth, there _was_ something on his mind, that being how exactly to attack the issue of the Yankees on this island. He had been told there were roughly seven to eight thousand Marines on this island, no more, no less. The regiment he had landed with numbered… perhaps about nine hundred men, give or take. He wasn’t sure how many men were on the island before the Yankees came, or how many were left – no doubt they had been fighting the Yankees for every inch of land. The question of supplying all these men, especially when daytime shipping was out of the question, weighed heavily on his mind.

“I do not think you are an effective liar,” Zenyatta claimed. Was he smirking? Genji couldn’t tell.

Scowling, Genji narrowed his eye, though he wasn’t sure he could even see how disappointed Genji was. “You know nothing of me.”

“Perhaps,” Zenyatta replied. “Perhaps we all know a little something of everyone we meet, much like a bumblebee knows something about each flower it visits.”

“We are not bumblebees, we are warriors for the Emperor. Perhaps you forget that some days.”

Zenyatta was sure to reply, before a messenger ran up to them, handing a small note to Genji. His presence was needed at Captain Yada’s temporary field headquarters immediately. Zenyatta was also ordered to make himself present to their superior. He thanked the messenger, dismissing him to go back and attend to other duties. As for himself and Zenyatta, it was time to retrieve their weapons from the crates.

Their supplies had been haphazardly stacked on the shore, to be moved to a more permanent organization area later when light and manpower allowed. The main issue facing their disembarkation was primarily just organizing the men and their supplies at once, and then determining where to go from there. For most of China, Genji had fought his war with a submachine gun bought from the Swiss, an experimental thing that performed adequate in the plains and cities. He appreciated the firepower it brought, but was not entirely satisfied with the lack of range. If anything, he much preferred the then-new Type 99 rifle, but the military had seen fit to issue him the submachine gun anyway. Much to his consternation, this was the case here as well. It was not the exact same gun he had used in China, but it looked wholly Japanese – at least he had that going for him. Zenyatta had been issued a Type 38 carbine, apparently, whether for lack of this new weapon or personal preference Genji was unsure. Regardless of Genji’s misgivings about weapon procurement and assigning methods, he slung the new weapon – the Type 100 if his brief glance at the receiver was correct – on his back, with Zenyatta doing the same as they headed to Captain Yada’s temporary field headquarters.

He had nestled his radio personnel and signals troops in a small corner of the jungle, away from the prying eyes of Yankee planes and ships alike. Small oil lamps hung off of makeshift poles created out of local vegetation, illuminating the folding table he had brought with him from Japan. A crude map was on the tabletop, with unit markers and proposed plans of attack drawn on it that seemed more like speculative designs than an actual plan.

“Ah, gentlemen, I’m glad you could come,” Captain Yada said, after the two men had bowed deeply to him. He gestured to the map, showing them a spot on Guadalcanal near the beach. “The Americans landed here last week. Colonel Ichiki is ordering a patrol to scout ahead and find the enemy, after which we shall seek to destroy him. Our intelligence shows that the Americans are weak, and unprepared to engage with us.”

“Are we to attack immediately upon finding the Yankees, Captain?”

Captain Yada nodded, gesturing to the map again. He pointed to a small mark near the beaches. This must have been where the Americans landed two weeks ago. “It is our belief the Americans are here. We shall throw them into the sea, and from there continue our expansion to Australia.”

That settled it. Genji nodded solemnly, preparing to explain this to his men. “So it shall be, Captain.”

“Understood, Captain,” Zenyatta said, bowing.

Excusing himself to brief his men and prepare them to move out, Genji sighed. This was not the auspicious start he had expected to find against the Americans. He reflected on their supply situation, with only roughly 250 rounds of ammunition for his company and enough rations for seven days. Either they would get a fresh shipment of supplies soon, or they would have to supplement their rations with American food. He didn’t look upon either prospect with much favor.

* * *

_August 21 st, 1942_

_0128 hours_

_Roughly 400 meters east of US Marine positions on Guadalcanal_

He could not see much with his binoculars. Part of it was the darkness, visibility even further hampered by on-off rain that turned Guadalcanal’s dirt into veritable pits of mud. The other part was that he knew an attack was beginning soon. Next to him, a sergeant from Colonel Ichiki’s staff prepared a flare gun, stuffing a cartridge in and preparing for the unspoken signal from the Colonel. For now, Genji and his men were in reserve, with Marine positions identified just ahead of them. Night attacks did not much suit Genji, but the Colonel had lectured on the subject before at the Imperial War School, and according to the Captain, he considered this his specialty.

Two raps on a rifle stock. That was the signal for the sergeant, who aimed his flare gun high and sent a green flare shooting up. Light, saturated with a green hue, flooded the area just as friendly machine guns and mortars began to fire. Marine rifle fire replied in kind just as quickly, and even from here and over the gunfire Genji could plainly hear the proud war cries of the vanguard. Now that he had light, Genji could look to the battlefield and see for himself what was going on. The vanguard had charged right into Marine positions, but resulting artillery fire from the Marines had cut them down. Through his binoculars, Genji watched several men cut apart as a Marine light cannon belched forth fire and smoke.

More thumps, these coming from far away behind the Marines. They had launched illumination shells, white light pouring down on the sandy beach and sending criss-crossing shadows dancing along every possible surface. Even with the intense light, Genji could pick out individual rifles firing, marking out each Marine position. It seemed like there were millions of them. A runner zipped past him, running down to another company commander. It didn’t look like a single man of the initial assault had survived, prompting Genji to look at his watch. Only an hour had passed since they opened fire, and the vanguard had charged. Boots began to march, sloppily due to the sand, signaling that this new company was about to begin a renewed attack.

“The Americans seem very strong,” Zenyatta noted, stepping next to Genji. His rifle hung on his back, slack since he had apparently not bothered to adjust the carrying strap. He pushed a pair of glasses up his nose, staring out at the resulting chaos.

“A temporary setback,” Genji retorted. “The Marines cannot hold out forever against our warrior spirit. Do you see that company there? Captain Takemoto commands it; he has a 5th Class Order of the Golden Kite badge.”

Zenyatta nodded, watching the company march towards the American lines. “For bravery, I assume?”

“Absolutely. In Shanghai, Captain Takemoto led his company across the Suzhou Creek, and conducted a bayonet charge against dug-in Chinese soldiers. He personally killed seven Chinese with his katana.”

“That sounds like bravery to me,” Zenyatta said, looking at him curiously. “Or does Imperial General Headquarters call suicidal recklessness something else?”

Genji frowned, scowling at him as bright flares shadowed his face with the ghosts of palm fronds and trees. “You do not understand,” he hissed, hoping that the fire in his voice could be felt by Zenyatta. “Captain Takemoto was _awarded_ that medal because he showed a willingness to disregard his life to fulfill military objectives. He could have died at any point in his charge, but Captain Takemoto’s warrior spirit carried him through. He deserves your _respect,_ Lieutenant.”

“Hmm,” Zenyatta hummed, looking out at the battlefield. The illumination shells had begun to dim, replaced just as soon by fresh ones. Genji ignored Zenyatta, taking his binoculars back up to his eyes. Captain Takemoto’s company was advancing now, with rifle fire already being exchanged between the Yankees and Captain Takemoto’s men. From here, each rifle popped with a sharp report, as the familiar Type 92 battalion guns traded shots with the Yankee artillery. Occasionally, Genji could hear the steady report of friendly machine guns, interrupted by the deep shuddering sound of some sort of American weapon. It felt like in the mere blink of an eye, Captain Takemoto’s men had reached the American lines and were intermingled with them, another charge led by the decorated Captain overrunning several isolated foxholes near the front of the main line of resistance.

Genji lowered the binoculars, sighing. How he wished he could be down there, fighting with his brothers against the Americans. Rumor was that they were tougher opponents than the Chinese had ever been, and Genji wanted to see if this rumor proved true. The shells and scattered rifle fire lit up the night like hellish lanterns, each shot in the dark another signal that the enemy was there and he would continue hunting until the last.

“Do my eyes deceive me,” Zenyatta asked, having raised his own pair of binoculars up, “or is Captain Takemoto’s company currently suffering losses?”

Impossible. It must be a ruse, some way to deceive or confuse the Yankees, he thought. Surely an officer as well-decorated as Captain Takemoto had a strategy, a method to overcome this unexpected American tenacity. The Yankees must be close to their breaking point. It was the only logical conclusion.

He turned away to answer an aide’s question, a split-second thing that didn’t even take away his attention, but the brief turn of his head had apparently been the most eventful one of his life. Genji turned back to see the fire die down, with the cries of wounded men echoing back to the spot he and Zenyatta occupied. The binoculars only reminded him of Shanghai, except instead of staring at the twisted, mutilated bodies of Chinese soldiers, he saw brave Japanese warriors cut down in the prime with no regard for their honor.

Heavy, labored breathing soon approached them. Captain Takemoto stumbled up the crest of the hill, his arm missing as his uniform, once dark green, was now stained with a deep crimson hue that clearly was his blood. The Captain’s sword was gone, as well as his rifle, and Genji feared for the Emperor’s property as well as his fellow officer’s life. “Where is Colonel Ichiki?” Captain Takemoto asked, a long, hollow look in his eyes.

“He is over there, in his command post,” Genji answered, unable to take his eyes off the Captain’s missing limb. “Why do you need him? Shouldn’t you see a medic?”

“We need to withdraw,” the Captain muttered. “They are too strong!”

Genji waved him off. Shock and blood loss, no doubt. He turned to his aide, who was staring wide-eyed at the scene. “Escort Captain Takemoto to the aid station,” he ordered, “and make sure that he does not spout any more of this nonsense about withdrawal!”

“Yes sir!” his aide shouted, taking hold of the Captain’s remaining arm and gently taking him to the rear. Another runner soon appeared, this one dispatched from Captain Yada’s headquarters. Wordlessly, he handed a note to Genji. The crumpled piece of paper had but one simple message written on it – Genji was to prepare his platoon to attack.

* * *

_August 21 st, 1942_

_0500 hours_

_Alligator Creek, Guadalcanal_

Gabriel shuddered, blinking rapidly. He hadn’t gotten the chance to sleep since the Japs started up their attack a few hours ago, and the only thing keeping him up at this point was sheer adrenaline. Already, he’d weathered two Jap banzai charges, and though the night was to be over soon, the morning sun couldn’t come quick enough. He glanced at his watch, taking his hand off his rifle. Just after five. Past few weeks, sunrise had been about 6, maybe 6:30. Probably about an hour of darkness left, if he was right and his watch hadn’t been busted. It had begun raining again, soaking Gabriel as a torrential downpour hit their lines. Just another thing to complain about when this was all said and done.

Next to him, Hirsch sneezed. Guess he was feeling the chill of the rain, rubbing his nose with a drenched sleeve. “Hey, Hirsch,” Reyes whispered, as if the wounded Japs ahead of him would communicate back to their lines, “you good?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Hirsch muttered. “They coming back yet?”

He strained to see in the pitch black of night. A strange feeling enveloped his hands, like the very skin had been pulled taught and pricked with a million tiny needles. Every muscle within his fingers felt like they had been carved out hollow, useless for anything other than keeping bones in the right place. So far, Gabriel couldn’t even tell the wounded Japs were out there in the night. The air was unusually calm after a scene of utter chaos, and this made him uneasy. Was that just the wind, or was there a Jap machine gunner getting ready to rake his foxhole? Was that whistling just a natural occurrence, or was it a signal to attack?

“I don’t know,” Gabriel finally answered, sighing as he shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe they gave up.”

The rain continued to pour down on them, bouncing off Gabriel’s helmet. The sandy dirt in their foxhole had turned into a near sludge, covering his boots, pants, and nearly everything he touched in a gritty mess that he only hoped could be cleaned off come morning. Assuming he even lived that long, of course. He tensed up, expecting _something_ to happen, but he wasn’t sure if it’d be a flare in the night or a thousand-man yell that signaled another insane charge.

Of all things, it turned out to be a bugle. Who the fuck was playing a bugle? The sound of boots stomping over ground and a clap of rifle fire told him the Japs were back. Gabriel shouldered his rifle, searching in vain for a target as glimpses of rifle fire popped around him. Fucking Jap rifles didn’t light up like Gabriel’s Springfield, it wasn’t fair at all. How was he supposed shoot them if they wouldn’t show him where they were? He heard a familiar pop – some Jap had gotten a grenade ready. The hissing thing flew towards him like an angry snake, to which Gabriel immediately tracked the noise and lobbed it back, ducking low with Hirsch as rifle and machine guns rang out all around them.

“ _Tennōheika banzai!”_

The horrible scream echoed in the dark, only punctuated by the shouts and raving yells that emanated from the Japs. A friendly gun sent up a star shell just in time to capture a wave of Jap troops charging, rifles cocked up high and bayonets fixed. A few of them had no weapon, but held a long sword that was very familiar to them. Gabriel set his sights on one of the charging Japs, squeezing the trigger and feeling the recoil slam him in the shoulder. The Jap collapsed almost immediately after, gurgling as he fell. Somebody on the .30 cal mowed down the charging Japs, but a handful still managed to break through. Gabriel could do little more than watch and work the bolt of his rifle as one of them leaped down into the foxhole, driving his bayonet into Hirsch as he did so. The Jap withdrew his bayonet, turning to look at Gabriel. By this time, Gabriel had maneuvered his rifle around and struck the Jap right in the face with the butt of his stock, which resulted in the Jap stumbling back into the foxhole. Hirsch groaned and muttered as Gabriel and the Jap were locked in hand-to-hand combat, but Gabriel couldn’t find himself focusing on that right now. The far more pressing matter was killing this Jap, and any others that saw fit to interfere with this fight.

Gabriel pulled back his rifle, turning it over in his hands and angling the blade towards the Jap. Despite the blow he had just taken, the Jap seemed coherent enough to react quickly, shoving Gabriel’s rifle out of the way and forcing it to stab uselessly at the foxhole they were in. Gabriel yanked his bayonet free of the sandy dirt, thrusting again right as the Jap blocked him with his own rifle. Alright, he could work around this. Gabriel kneed the Jap in the crotch, forcing him to double over and giving Gabriel the space to drive his blade right into the Jap’s spine, a horrific scraping and spurting noise accompanying it as shoved it in deeper. Had to make sure the Jap was dead. No other choice.

More shouting, more rifle fire, and another dull machine gun burst. Gabriel extracted his bayonet, looking for another target in the fleeting light. The Japs were shelling their foxholes almost constantly now, screaming artillery whistling down on them almost so regularly he could set his watch to it. Dirt covered his face, mixing with the rain to stick to him as he blinked, shouldering his rifle to track a Jap that was running perpendicular to him. One shot, and he went down for good. Gabriel worked the bolt, searching again. No Japs in front of him – all the gunfire was coming from the left. Looked clear.

_Alright,_ Gabriel thought to himself. _Take care of Hirsch._ He turned to his buddy, still gurgling and sputtering as another star shell descended on the battlefield. Bright white light filled the area, tempered by the blue hue of night as Gabriel ripped open his first aid pouch. Sulfa powder and compression would have to do for now. Hirsch looked bad, and not even just on the surface. His blood had seeped through his uniform all across his chest where the Jap bayonet had come in, and every time he breathed, another little spurt of it jumped out like a water fountain. Gabriel’s breathing became quick as he rushed to tear open the powder, pouring it with shaky hands over Hirsch’s bleeding chest. He called for a corpsman, but in the noise around him, Gabriel wasn’t sure if anyone could hear, much less if anyone would even bother to come.

“Hang in there, buddy,” Gabriel muttered, pushing as tightly as he could on the still-bleeding wound. He could feel blood running up along his hands as he tried to keep it inside his friend, doing practically everything he could to make sure Hirsch stayed awake and alive. “Doc’s coming, alright? You’ll be fine.”

Hirsch could only weakly mutter in response, pawing at Gabriel’s arm with a bloodstained hand. Gabriel didn’t need to be a mindreader. He knew what Hirsch was saying. _I’m gonna die._ The desperate, unspoken plea only made Gabriel fight harder for his life, practically willing the blood to stay in. Maybe the sheer Marine attitude would force the blood to listen to him. All Gabriel knew was that he was not going to let Hirsch die, not if he could do anything about it.

Someone approached their foxhole, running fast. He briefly glanced up – it was a Navy corpsman, sliding into the foxhole even as bullets whizzed and cracked around them. The corpsman adjusted his helmet, making a quick cross with a free hand as he dug out some bandages from his medical bag. “Move your hands,” he commanded, which Gabriel followed. The corpsman blinked once, watching the blood pour out like someone had just turned on the faucet and was letting a cup flow over. He took one look at Gabriel and solemnly shook his head. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Bullshit!” Gabriel yelled. “Patch him up! Give him some morphine, do _something,_ you fucking quack!”

The corpsman shook his head again, more violently this time, haphazardly wrapping a bandage around Hirsch’s body that quickly turned red with blood. Before Gabriel could even think to demand more from him, the corpsman had disappeared, off to torture somebody else with promises of assistance. Bullets whipped the air around Gabriel, forcing him to abandon his friend for the moment and set to firing back at the Japs.

The rage spilled into his combat now, as he no longer took the same calm, collected shots he had when first beginning tonight’s fight. He sent out each bullet with a fury, a wrath that no Jap could ever hope to comprehend. Gabriel worked his weapon so violently, there was a small voice that was afraid he would break it at any moment. A clicking noise told him he had run out of ammo, and thus with the same anger that had fueled his shooting, Gabriel reloaded his rifle by shoving the cartridges in and beating the bolt into submission. Any Jap that stood against him was destined to die, he silently declared, and if there was to be anyone to stop him, then he would destroy them as well.

It felt like in the mere blink of an eye, the sun had begun rising, and so too did the signal of retreat from the Japs. Another bugle player called out, playing a tone that apparently told whoever was left to fall back across Alligator River. Gabriel buried himself in the foxhole, solidifying his place in it and steadying his rifle across every conceivable surface he could find. From there, he picked off retreating Japs, only pausing to reload. As dawn broke fully and natural light began to cross Guadalcanal’s beaches, Gabriel could see the disaster of an attack for the Japs. Mangled bodies lay stinking just across from him in the pits and valleys made by mortars and guns alike, blood draining out into the river and turning it a deep red. Body parts, most of whom no longer had an owner, lay scattered around like they had fallen off a cart and been forgotten about.

The stench of death was not much masked by the smell of gunpowder and spent artillery shells, mixing together to create a hellish odor that stung Gabriel’s nose. He looked over to look at Hirsch, only to see he no longer moved. His eyes were glazed over, staring into the sky as if accepting his place in Heaven. Gabriel’s shoulders felt heavy as the call to cease fire came down the line. Not too long after, Sergeant Morrish came around, checking in on foxholes to see who in his squad was still alive.

“Reyes,” he muttered, nodding to him. A cigarette hung off his mouth, and he offered one from his pack to Gabriel. He took it, and Gabriel realized his hands were blood-stained and caked with sandy dirt. What’s more, they wouldn’t stop shaking. The Sarge lit up Gabriel’s cigarette for him, staring at him briefly before looking to Hirsch’s dead body. “Guess he bought the farm, huh?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel replied, letting a billow of smoke escape his lips.

“Shame,” Sergeant Morrish said, shaking his head. “He was a good Marine.”

He could only nod in response. “We gonna get him back home?”

“Hope so. Sit tight, Japs might launch another attack.”

Sergeant Morrish went off to find another foxhole, leaving Gabriel staring out across Alligator Creek alone. From here, it seemed like every single Jap still alive on this island was waiting in the treeline just beyond, preparing for a big push that’d cause another hundred dead man to sit before him. Silently, Gabriel hoped they’d come. He’d give anything to kill the Japs over and over again, show them what happens when they fucked with Gabriel Reyes.

More footsteps. Pilosyan had wandered over, his rifle slung behind his back. “Hey, Reyes, I’m gonna go souvenir hunting. Wanna bet I can find myself one of those Jap officer swords?”

“Don’t go out there,” Gabriel said weakly. “You don’t know if they’re all dead or not.”

“Gotta be,” Pilosyan said, shrugging his shoulders. “We gave them a good beating, Reyes.”

Against his better judgment, Gabriel put out his cigarette and hopped out of the foxhole, joining Pilosyan in souvenir hunting. Or, at least, making sure Pilosyan wouldn’t get himself shot mucking about with dead Japs.

The scene out on the field of battle was even worse than the view from his foxhole. Blood and guts had been spilled on almost every possible surface, and the Japs who hadn’t been killed cleanly had wandered around, tried to crawl to find somewhere quiet to die, and that meant that they spread blood, guts, and pieces of themselves everywhere. Tattered pieces of uniforms stuck to the sand, mixed with chunks of flesh and bloody shoes that looked bad even _before_ being shot up. Pilosyan was much more concerned with rummaging through pockets, looking for Jap pistols and swords than making sure the people he was touching were actually _dead._

“You’re gonna get fucking shot,” Gabriel said, watching the treeline.

“You’re fucking paranoid,” Pilosyan shot back. He kicked over a Jap body, shouting triumphantly. Gabriel turned to see Pilosyan holding a Jap sword high in the air, a wide smile on his face. “Check it out! I got myself a genuine Jap sword!”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, jerking his head back to their lines. “How wonderful. Let’s go back.”

“You don’t want one, Reyes?”

“What makes you think I _want_ a fucking souvenir?” Gabriel growled, eyeing a Jap body that was moving a bit too much for his liking. “I hate this island.”

Pilosyan shrugged, nodding at another two Marines from another company that were heading out to do some souvenir hunting of their own. “We all do, Reyes, you’re not special.”

“Whatever,” he muttered. They headed back to their lines, where C-rations were handed out. The dull gold-colored cans were heavy as hell, and the paper labels often fell off almost immediately by the time they had been unpacked. It was a guessing game as to what they’d be getting, and more often than not all three menu items were terrible. Gabriel opened the mystery can, only to find it was Meat Stew with Beans.

He hated this stupid fucking ration.


	4. Ironbottom Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack meets the IJN in face-to-face combat. Gabriel fights at Henderson Field.

_I have heard of military campaigns that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen military campaigns that were skilled but protracted. No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare. - Sun Tzu_

_October 24 th, 1942_

_1347 hours_

_Henderson Field, Guadalcanal_

The skies were overcast and gray, matching Gabriel’s mood. He had heard the Japs had attacked another unit of Marines somewhere to the West, and it made him anxious. Two months on Guadalcanal had taught him a variety of things – first, the Japs are always watching, always waiting. Two, if the Japs attacked one place, they were going to come for another part of the line sooner rather than later. Right now, though, it seemed calm, both good and bad for his nerves. He’d been holding Henderson Field for what felt like years, just watching the days pass by and waiting for something interesting to happen.

Next to him, Pilosyan cleaned his rifle, working over the bolt and receiver with a proverbial fine tooth comb. Guadalcanal was warm, making it hard to keep their rifles in good working order. He envied the Army National Guard, who arrived with the new semi-automatic M1 Garand rifles. Gabriel heard that they had gotten them, but he’d never seen them in action before. Shame they couldn’t get any, but a rifle was a rifle – bolt action or semi-automatic, both killed Japs with extreme prejudice, which is what he wanted out of a rifle.

“Hey, Reyes, I never asked, what’d you do before you joined the Marines?”

Gabriel shrugged, sucking on a piece of hard candy saved from one of the few edible C-rations as he stared out at the rain-soaked field in front of him. “Went to school. I was trying to save up to go to college before the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor.”

“What, that’s it?” Pilosyan asked. “That’s literally all you did?”

“Why does anything else matter?” Gabriel asked, furrowing his brow. “That’s back there. We’re _here._ Japs don’t give a fuck about where we came from.”

Pilosyan chuckled, inspecting his work. He must have been satisfied with it, since he reassembled the bolt and slid it back into his rifle. “And here I thought I could include you in my memoirs. Guess everyone’s just gonna have to use their imagination on the great Private Reyes, buddy since San Diego.”

“You’ve got your mind on the wrong things,” Gabriel retorted, shaking his head. “Memoirs, Jap souvenirs… what’s next, you’re gonna call up some guy in Hollywood for a movie deal?”

His buddy’s face lit up, and at once Gabriel knew he had said the exact wrong thing, putting another stupid idea in Pilosyan’s head. “Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Reyes!” Gabriel immediately facepalmed, groaning in response.

Sergeant Morrish came around, his rifle slung behind his back as he smoked. “Hey, you two, look alive. Jap patrol got sighted north of here.”

“Jap patrol?” Pilosyan asked, rushing to reassemble his rifle. “You think they’re gonna attack, Sarge?”

“Don’t know,” Sergeant Morrish said, shrugging. “Just get ready.”

Gabriel pulled back the bolt on his rifle, ensuring five rounds were loaded and ready to go. He hadn’t fired since that morning, and as such his Springfield was fully loaded. Satisfied, he locked it back in place, looking out at the perimeter of Henderson Field in front of him. By now, they had been able to build serious field fortifications, protected against just about anything the Japs could throw at them. Be it bombs, artillery, or rifle fire, the Marines were now protected. Next to him, Pilosyan loaded his rifle, tossing away the spent stripper clip.

Time seemed to pass slowly as he waited for a sign of anything. Would they charge silently, or would he hear that same _banzai_ yell he had heard dozens of times as on that night in August? The tension was creeping into him, unsettling every nerve Gabriel had in his body. Part of him expected that the entire treeline was nothing but an elaborate Jap ruse, as if they had hollowed out the very trees and were inching them forward, waiting for the perfect time to jump out and stab Gabriel in the chest.

In the blink of an eye, a wave of tan-colored and dark green uniforms burst from the trees ahead of them as a Jap woodpecker machine gun crackled and chattered. Gabriel took the rifle up to his shoulder, peering down the sights and tracking the lead Jap. Might have been a sergeant, but truth be told he didn’t much care. One squeeze of the trigger later resulted in one dead Jap, falling forward and trampled by the horde of advancing Japs. Gabriel heard a friendly .30 cal start opening up, spitting red-tipped tracer bullets intermittently into the Jap charge, cutting them down like blades of grass. He worked the bolt silently as somebody shouted out for a corpsman, and another voice on his right called for another .30 cal to be brought up to the line.

The Jap charge had slowed down some, causing the Japs to take cover wherever they could. It was slow going for them, and for a moment Gabriel almost pitied the Japs. Their leaders had just tossed them into a meatgrinder of accurate, withering United States Marine Corps rifle fire, and even without the addition of their machine guns and BARs it was shredding the hell out of them. Guns from Battalion fired from far behind him, lobbing shells into packs of clustered Jap troops and sending them sky-high. Another Jap targeted, another Jap down, like clockwork Gabriel worked his rifle’s bolt and marked up another kill for him.

Out of ammo. Gabriel pulled back the bolt, shoving new cartridges in. He scanned as the bolt went forward, trying to track more Japs. They were hiding behind rocks and the wrecks of destroyed trucks, once cannibalized for spare parts and now just left where they lie. Gabriel didn’t hear any Jap artillery – either they didn’t have it, or they were waiting on something. Rain had started falling, pretty heavily too, since he could hear it bouncing off the sheet metal roof above the noise of gunfire. Somebody in the next dugout was getting trigger-happy with the BAR, and the familiar hissing of Jap grenades flooded his ears as he alternated between ducking below the firing window and firing his rifle. Showers of dirt flew up in the air, caused either by grenades or shells dropped by friendly artillery, the rain creating almost immediate mud pits.

Gabriel blinked, trying to judge how far out the Jap he was about to shoot was. They charged like men possessed, getting tangled on the barbed wire that they had laid up a week ago. Those that made it through just ran over their friend’s bodies, not caring if they were dead or alive. The darkened skies and heavy rain made it impossible to judge time, and with a strong push, the Japs shoved Gabriel and his squad out of one series of dugouts. Sergeant Morrish immediately ordered a counterattack to take it back, and within the hour they had occupied former positions, now with a handful of Jap bodies to show for it.

Before Gabriel was even aware of it, night had fallen and searchlights had been turned on, sending bright circles of light into the impenetrable jungle ahead. Rain still continued to beat down on them, but it came in rough showers that felt more like somebody was fucking around with the water. Gabriel found himself running out of ammo, having to rely on some kid from HQ that ran down the line handing cartridges to people whenever they needed them.

“Where those Japs at?” somebody asked. Gabriel looked over to see a guy from the Army National Guard standing next to him, positively soaked and adjusting a helmet that looked too big for his head.

“Over there,” Gabe said, jerking his head to the nebulous darkness that surely had at least two Jap companies hiding in it. His new-found Army friend fired off a handful of shots blindly, a loud _ping_ echoing from his rifle as the clip ejected itself out. _Damn,_ Gabriel thought, _I gotta get myself one of those._

Another Jap banzai charge forced him to focus back on the more immediate problem. Gabriel fired as often and efficiently as bullets and sight allowed him to, hearing calls for corpsman, medic, ammo, support, and nearly every possible plea for help all around him. He heard scattered Japanese somewhere nearby, but he couldn’t tell if it was signs of the Japs preparing to attack again, or if they had taken something. Jap rifle fire broke out from the flank – guess that answered _that_ question. Sergeant Morrish rounded them up, as well as a few brave volunteers from the Army National Guard troops that had been shoved on the line.

The rain was coming down even harder than Gabriel thought possible now, and despite the darkness he could see the Sarge gesturing to another pit. “Over there, there’s some Japs,” he shouted, waving wildly at the enemy-occupied position. “We’re gonna go over there and fucking kill them all! Oorah?”

“Oorah!” Gabriel yelled, alongside nearly everyone on the squad. With weapons and ammo in hand, including the addition of as many hand grenades as their bandoleers could carry, they charged forward. Time to clear out the Japs. Gabriel checked his watch as they ran forward – nearly 4 AM. How was that even possible? It felt like only minutes had passed, and he knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. Regardless, he had to focus on killing these Japs ahead of him. He lobbed a grenade into the dugout, counting down seconds until it exploded. The National Guardsman went in first, immediately shot in the chest for his effort. Gabriel followed behind, crouching down low as he sighted the Jap working his rifle and replying in kind with a bullet of his own. Both the Jap and the National Guardsman cried and moaned, desperate for any aid. Sounded like the Jap was crying. Good. He and Pilosyan moved further inside the dugout, with Sergeant Morrish right behind with his M50 Reising submachine gun.

The Japs deeper inside were just as prepared for a fight as Gabriel and Pilosyan were, tossing in their hissing grenades that Gabriel punted back to them. They charged around the corner, bayonets high, but a few shots from Sarge’s gun knocked them down for good. The sandbags and dirt walls muffled every single movement and made Gabriel feel claustrophobic, but the ultimate goal of killing every Jap between him and friendly lines was the only thing driving him at this point. One of the Japs, maybe an officer or something, shouted _“Banzai!”_ as he ran around the corner with his sword. He nearly got Pilosyan, had Pilosyan not shot him dead in the chest first.

Dawn broke as Gabriel, Pilosyan and Sergeant Morrish killed the last handful of Japs in the dugout, and around them, gunfire began to die down. The Japs looked like they were in retreat, and those that couldn’t – or wouldn’t – fall back were standing tall, or pulling the pins on their grenades and tackling Marines to the ground. Small explosions from these fucking pointless sacrifices echoed around him as blood spilled on almost every cardinal direction. Gabriel looked out at the clearing in front of their positions as rain began to let up and the sun shined, seeing another scene of destruction. Jap bodies lay in the field, torn to shreds even worse than he had seen at Alligator Creek. The National Guardsman that he had found a temporary friend with had a twisted look of horror on his face, permanently frozen as he had since died. Groaning emanated from all sorts of corners, both from wounded Japs and hurt Marines that were being attended to by corpsmen.

“Fuck me,” Sergeant Morrish muttered, kicking a wounded Jap that lay at his feet. When the man reacted, Morrish shouldered his gun and shot him in the head once. “Fucking animals. When we get to Japan, I’m gonna beat every Jap I find until I lose my watch.”

“Oorah, Sarge,” Gabriel said, nodding as he lit up a cigarette.

Pilosyan rolled his shoulders back, looking around them. Eventually, he looked to Gabe and started laughing.

“What’s so fucking funny?” Gabriel asked.

“It’s Sunday. Think they’ll have service today?”

* * *

_November 13 th, 1942_

_0122 hours_

_Savo Sound, Pacific Ocean_

Jack rubbed sleep from his eyes, groaning as he lurched himself out of bed. The call for general quarters had been sounded, and Jack was nothing if not a slave to the order. Before he was even conscious of it, he had put on his hat and was about to hit the deck, before someone stopped him and about seven other guys, and informed them there was a hell of a storm raging outside. Time to get the foul weather uniform out. The oily rain suit was hard to get on, and felt more like slipping a massive cellophane bag over himself than an actual piece of military equipment. The stiff suit crinkled and crunched as he walked, and as he hit the deck itself, the rain pounded down on the ship and splattered against the rain suit, flicking water up at his face. The howling wind and chilling rain bit at him as he made his way to the familiar 20mm gun, climbing up the ladder with even more rain finding its way to Jack’s face more than anything else. The foul weather suit _really_ was not helping him here, but at least it was keeping his uniform dry, for the most part.

He groaned again, clawing his way up and taking control of the 20mm. Blackwell wasn’t here yet. The radium markings on his watch told him it was 0124 hours. How’d anyone spot the Japs at this time of night? The USS _Phillip_ lurched and leaned from side to side, not as a result of normal sea movement but part of maneuvers. Where the Hell was the Admiral taking them? Rain continued to buffet Jack’s face as he tried to set the gun up solo, barely even able to see the sights in front of him.

Somebody was climbing up the ladder. “Beaumont?” an unfamiliar voice called.

“No, it’s Morrison,” Jack replied, shouting to make himself heard. “Wrong gun!”

The unknown sailor left, disappearing into the darkness and rain. Jack found himself alone once more, trying to find magazines and figure out how he was supposed to shoot at Japs he couldn’t see.

Somebody else began scrambling up the ladder to his gun, and this time it was Blackwell. He cursed the rain as he slid next to Jack, muttering incoherently under his breath as they waited for something, _anything._ Would they be opening fire soon? Going back to bed and ignoring everything? Or were they destined to just sit here and stare at the pitch black night? Jack wasn’t sure, and his trigger finger was itchy. Something had to give, but all he could do was stand fast as _Phillip_ bobbed through the ocean.

Massive searchlights lit up, but not from Jack’s ship. They came from somewhere out in the water, perfectly illuminating another ship. Jack recognized the American flag flying immediately. Was that the USS _Atlanta?_ Who the Hell was lighting it up like a Christmas tree? Was it the Japs? Jack tracked the searchlight’s origin, and figured what the Hell – there wasn’t a reason one of their own ships would light up one of their own in the dead of night. May as well start firing, maybe take out some Japs along the way. Incredibly huge blasts of fire and smoke poured out from the darkness, illuminating a Jap ship bigger than anything Jack had ever seen before as his own 20mm gun shook, firing burst after burst at where he reckoned the Japs were.

The flashes of guns were also accompanied by their thunderous clapping, spilling out and crashing from both sides as a confused brawl soon began. Jack heard a voice shouting from below them, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Blackwell took the lead on communicating with the sailor, yelling back and forth as Jack kept up the fire.

“Hey, words of wisdom coming our way!” Blackwell yelled, apparently having wrapped up his talk with the other sailor.

“Yeah? What is it?” Jack knocked off a magazine, affixing a new one in its place.

“Admiral says all even ships fire to port, all odd ships fire to starboard!”

Jack blinked, staring back at Blackwell through the rain. “What the Hell does _that_ mean?!”

“I dunno!” Blackwell admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Just keep shooting I guess!”

Well, no time like the present. Jack squeezed the gun’s trigger again, but instead of bursts of high explosives, the shells were bright red, and then just _bright._ What was going on? Tracers weren’t supposed to be this reactive.

“God dammit, Morrison!” Blackwell shouted. “We’re trying to _kill_ these Japs, not illuminate them!”

He realized far too late that he had accidentally grabbed a magazine full of illumination rounds, yanking the magazine off and working the bolt to clear the offending round. Blackwell shoved a new magazine in, this one hopefully with actually lethal cartridges inside. Jack dragged the heavy bolt back, hearing it lag forward and catch a round. Back in action.

By now, Jack could hear and see so many ships firing, he could scarcely tell which ship was friendly or not. It was like being in the midst of a barroom brawl after all the lights had been shot out. Though with as close as some of these shots sounded, maybe it was more like a knife fight in a phone booth. Jack kept pouring fire on the Jap ship with bright searchlights on it, knocking out at least one on his own, though within a minute she exploded. A massive orange plume of light rose out of the ship, rendering her searchlights – and the star shells Jack had fired – pointless.

Not all was good, though. The USS _Atlanta_ drifted dead, her lights gone and only the firing of smaller guns like the ones Jack was using on his own ship fighting back at the Japs. Another destroyer in their formation got slammed by Jap gunfire and stopped dead in the water. However, far more pressing a concern for Jack was the massive Jap warship that was crossing so close to them, he felt as if he could jump between decks and start a swordfight like it was still the Age of Sail or something. The huge Jap main guns couldn’t depress far enough to hit them, thank God, but each shockwave that resulted from their horrific salvos shook every bone in his body. Jack replied by raking the superstructure with his 20mm gun, watching glass shatter and pieces of weak metal break off.

Another orange glow. One of their fellow destroyers was on fire, her keel split in two. Jack could only watch as shells screamed for his ship, slamming into the stern with a resounding thud. A horrific grinding noise came from the aft part of the ship, a massive clunking noise accompanying it. Jack felt his chest tighten as he glanced down at the ocean. The sea resembled a sheet of polished Apache tears, with men screaming over the waves and rain to be saved and rescued. USS _Phillip_ began to turn away, heading off just as the Japs apparently decided to retire as well. The empty husks of friendly and enemy ships, all in various states of chaos, disrepair, and seaworthiness, stood like a monument to the chaos that had consumed this part of the ocean for a little while. Jack looked again at his watch – 0226 hours. He felt like he’d been fighting all night.

* * *

_November 15 th, 1942_

_1028 hours_

_Townsville, Australia_

Spending time at port waiting for the USS _Phillip_ to be repaired gave Jack a decent amount of time for catching up on things that he’d never been able to do at sea. Mail call was common, and he spent a lot of his days writing back to Mom and Dad at he farm, assuring them he was alright and that they’d give the Japs a good thrashing. Mom worried if the food on the ship was good enough, while Dad, a Great War veteran, wondered plainly if the Navy did things as idiotically as the Army had. Jack could only speculate.

In the meanwhile, though, he had managed to learn a handful of things about his buddy Vincent. He was a deck ape, the sort of fellow that showed up on deck ready to fix anything and clung tightly to every naval tradition that had been established since time immortal. Having grown up in New York, he retained his thick Brooklyn accent, and sang praises about everything Italian from his mom’s cooking to the multitude of brothers, sisters and cousins he had growing up. He was especially proud of his kid brother, who had joined the Army and doing something he said was called “airborne training,” whatever that meant. To Jack, it sounded like fancy talk for learning to fly planes.

More importantly, though, Vincent talked to Jack a lot, and more or less interrogated him on everything about himself. Vincent forced him to reveal the family business of growing corn for years on end, admit he had no siblings to speak of, and had never even seen a boat in his life until he joined the Navy. This last fact was something Vincent took great pleasure in, bursting into fits of laughter every time he thought about it.

The only thing he couldn’t get Jack to admit was that he was queer.

It was an uncomfortable truth Jack had confronted long before he ever hit Great Lakes, when he hung around with Sally back home and realized he’d much rather talk to her brother than her. He’d played the part of a loving boyfriend for a long time with Sally, but almost immediately broke it off once he joined the Navy. The lie he’d told her was that it was dangerous, and he would rather not leave someone a widow than get hitched two days before shipping out. The real reason was Jack was afraid he’d have to come back home and live a fake life. To him, that was far worse than dying or getting wounded out here in the oceans. Since then, he’d just shoved away any feelings he had for anyone, casting them out to sea and leaving them to the depths.

Of course, none of that really helped when he was sitting here across the table at this Australian bar, sharing drinks with Vincent and wondering why he’d ever deluded himself into thinking he could abandon it all. Jack didn’t know if Vincent was like him, but he sure wasn’t going to broach the subject. Better to just stay friends like this, and maybe then when this was all over, he’d have the money and time to go to New York and see the sights that Vincent talked about.

“I’m tellin’ you, Jack,” Vincent said, slamming back an Australian lager. “We get Stateside leave? We’re going to New York.”

“I believe you,” Jack replied, chuckling. “Gotta stop by home anyway, say hi to the folks.”

“Yeah, always gotta check in with the old man and Ma, I know how that is,” Vincent said, nodding. “Hey, Jack, I got an idea.”

The words _“I got an idea”_ never meant good things when they came out of Vincent’s mouth. Jack sighed, downing the warm Australian beer as he waited for Vince to go on.

“So, you know Tash? He does tattoos, _damn_ good ones. We’re gonna go get us one.”

Before Jack could even contest the idea, Vincent had drank his beer in a flash, grabbed his arm and was actively dragging him to find Tash. They escaped the bar first, meandering their way through Townsville like sleepwalking teenagers. Jack stumbled constantly over the Australian curbs, while Vincent kept shouting for Jack to follow him even though he was right next to him. They toured the various bars and local haunts known to sailors as friendly places to stay, searching fruitlessly for Tash. Secretly, Jack hoped they’d never find him. He had already experienced Tash’s pen before – his back was dotted with a swallow for setting out to sea, a golden dragon for crossing the International Date Line, and a shellback for crossing the equator – and he was loathe to repeat the experience.

Much to Jack’s consternation, though, they found Tash alone in a corner of one of the many bars in town, clutching a club soda and silently watching the dancing and drinking around him. He looked more like a guy studying animals rather than a human being having fun at a bar. Jack and Vincent stumbled over to him, causing the grim-faced man to stare up at them with a cocked eyebrow.

“Hey, Tash,” Vincent slurred, leaning on the booth that the artist had nestled himself in. “Jack and I wanna get some tats, you got some time?”

Tash stared back at them, slowly sipping on his club soda. His arms were conspicuously bare, despite his skill with the needle and reported masterpieces Jack had seen on the ship, while his dark eyes looked them over, much like Jack figured a painter would look over a landscape. “Alright,” he said with a deep Texan drawl. “What d’y’all want?”

“Let’s get ‘Hold Fast’ on our knuckles, the both of us,” Vincent said, laughing as he slapped Jack on the back.

“Y’all deckhands? Alright, that’s easy,” Tash said, standing up. He stuffed a cigarette into his mouth, leading them out of the bar and back to their shore quarters, where he waved off onlookers eager to get a glimpse at his next work of art. Jack was first to receive new ink, despite his unwillingness to actually get it in the first place. But, hey, Vincent seemed pretty dead-set on it, so why not? The needle pricked and poked at his knuckles as Tash went to work, injecting the ink into him with a speed and efficiency that Jack scarcely saw out of anyone, let alone a tattoo artist. Within an hour, he was done, and Vincent was next. Jack’s knuckles were red and stung with each movement, a small price to pay for the camaraderie he now had with Vincent.

Another hour passed, and soon Tash had declared his part of the deed done, telling them to come back later if they wanted them filled in to be more visible. Jack looked down at his new tattoo – the word had been imprinted on his hands in a bare outline, clearly meant to be filled in at another time. Tash said he didn’t like doing too much of a tattoo at once, especially if they’d been “damn idiots” like Jack and Vincent were and had been drinking. Apparently, that qualm didn’t extend to working on drunk men.

Jack started to wonder how he’d explain this to Mom and Dad when he got home.


	5. Port of Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of Guadalcanal winds down, but not before Gabriel can experience something life-changing while on The Island.

_When doing battle, seek a quick victory. A long battle will blunt weapons and diminish ferocity. - Sun Tzu_

_November 20 th, 1942_

_0028 hours_

_Somewhere on Guadalcanal_

Gabriel could never get used to the night on The Island. Some night, there was a full moon and no clouds, but the lack of actual light prevented him from being able to see much farther than the end of the perimeter. Some nights, like tonight, it was so dark he could barely even see the end of his rifle, let alone any Japs that might be hiding in the dark. The pitch-black conditions made Gabriel wonder why the hell they were even out here. He knew Pilosyan was around him, _somewhere._ One of the new guys, a kid that had just joined and been sent over here to replace one of their dead, was behind Gabriel. _New guys._ Fucking replacements. They looked up to Gabriel and Pilosyan, said they were “the old breed.” _Old._ Gabriel scoffed just thinking about it. They weren’t even out of their 20s, and these guys were acting like they’d lived through seven campaigns with medals to match.

“Reyes, you there?” Pilosyan’s voice, although hushed, broke through the night.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he muttered back, still trying to get his bearings.

“Hey, guys, I’m here too,” the replacement said, just a little bit too loudly.

“Shut the fuck up,” Gabriel hissed. “This is a fucking recon mission, not a goddamn tea party. Keep your eyes peeled, Marine.”

He heard the new guy draw a breath, about to say something, but he thought better of it. Good. The less problems they had, the better. Sergeant Morrish always said he wanted to get through missions like this quick and clean. Well, right now, they weren’t being quick, but clean was doing well so far. All this night scouting had to be good. Henderson Field hadn’t been hit by a Jap attack for weeks. Maybe they were finally giving up, or, more likely in Gabriel’s mind, they were gearing up for another big offensive.

Gabriel stumbled, involuntarily cursing as he fell to the ground. Unexpectedly, it was wet, grimy. Judging by the sound of slop hitting water, he must had fallen right into a mud pit. Well, there goes the “clean” part of being quick and clean. Gabriel winced, bringing up one of his hands and shaking it off best he could, then wiping off whatever mud might have gotten on his face. Maybe he was just slathering more on. He couldn’t really tell at this point. _Shit,_ where had his rifle gone? He dug around for his Springfield, finding it practically covered in muck.

Shaking the mud off his rifle, Gabriel swore again. Couldn’t clean his fucking rifle in the dark, not out on patrol. He’d have to deal with it until he got back to camp.

“Hey, Reyes, you good buddy?” Pilosyan asked.

“Yeah,” Gabriel replied, sighing heavily. “Fucking bullshit. Can’t believe Tojo’s at home in this shit.” He could barely see Pilosyan turning away and continuing on their patrol, much less any more mud pits. The night was quiet, and the air smelled like wet sand. Honestly, it was _too_ quiet for Gabriel’s liking. Something was up, he just knew it. Bugs sounded off in the leaves, wet branches creaked underneath their boots, and every step felt like he was inching ever closer to his doom.

_"Tennōheika banzai!"_

Japs started screaming all around him, and before he was aware of it, he saw blurs of Jap uniforms rushing past him. The replacement started screaming his head off, and training kicked in before rationality did. Gabriel squeezed the trigger of his rifle, the bright flash enveloping the space around him as he heard wood hit flesh. Either Pilosyan or the new kid had just gotten a buttstock to the face. He heard a Jap dying – guess his shot hit _someone._ Gabriel racked back the bolt to load a new round, but couldn’t get it back into battery. The bolt felt rough, like there was something stuck in it. _Wait, shit, of course,_ he thought. Fucking rocks from the mud and grime, the shit he couldn’t clean out without disassembling the entire rifle. Gabriel stared down at his rifle, trying to glean any light from the moon to see what was going on. Out of battery, no round loaded, the only hope he had was to try and fix bayonets and beat the Japs at their own game.

He looked up just in time to see a Jap officer aiming his gun at him. He was surrounded on all sides by Japs. The new guy had stopped screaming, either dead or cowed into shutting the hell up, Gabriel didn’t know. Pilosyan he could see now, being poked in the back by a Jap with a bayonet. The officer had a hard-set look about him, looking down on Gabriel.

“Come with me,” he said. Well, it wasn’t like he could do anything _else_ right now. Gabriel dropped his weapon, soon taken into custody by the Japs.

* * *

_November 20 th, 1942_

_0448 hours_

_Mount Austen, Guadalcanal_

If there was one thing Genji could appreciate about the American in front of him, it was that he was incredibly resilient. These Marines, men he and his men had captured on patrol, were sure to be an excellent source of intelligence.

At least, they _should_ have been.

They had to kill one already – his constant cries for help made him a liability, and Genji was loathe to have their position revealed by a crying Yankee. Thus, they had been left with two of the Marines, both men stoic in their resistance. So, for now, Genji had kept them in a hut in their quarters, keeping them under constant guard. Sergeant Ehara was busy interrogating one of them, a man with bright red hair that was cut short and stubble that looked several weeks old. The other man was far more interesting to Genji.

He blew out a puff of smoke, staring at the Yankee’s tan skin, which had been stained by a veritable river of crimson blood that had finally stopped flowing from his mouth. Thus far, the Yankee had resisted every method of torture that Sergeant Ehara had utilized. For now, the _tanbo_ was a sufficient tool for the job, but these two had endured simulated drowning, broken bones, and beatings that his sergeants took great pleasure in. The Yankee’s stark white eyes were only marred by his dark pupils, filled with the rage he had for Genji. Why would it not be? After all, his navy had destroyed a critical American harbor. It was only natural, Genji concluded.

“You think because you say nothing,” Genji said in English to the Yankee, “you are strong?”

As he expected, the Yankee refused to answer him. His eyes narrowed, and though Genji suspected his jaw was broken, his lips moved as if he wanted to do something. He could tell the Yankee wanted to fight back, lash out, _anything_ to attack. Quite frankly, Genji found it admirable. If he had been Japanese, he would have been the perfect soldier.

“Don’t tell them a _fucking_ thing,” the other Yankee said.

“Shut up!” Sergeant Ehara yelled, hitting the Yankee again for his insolence.

Genji got up from his crouch, an attempt to intimidate the American into speaking. Perhaps his friend could be convinced to cooperate. Sergeant Ehara paused his beating to allow Genji to take his _wakizashi_ out, which he used to lift up the Yankee’s head with the tip. “Are all Americans like this?” Genji wondered in Japanese.

The Yankee stared back at him, breathing heavily. His face was heavily bruised from Sergeant Ehara’s efforts to break him, with a handful of missing teeth. Blood covered the man’s uniform, which itself was barely better than tatters now. “Fuck you,” he muttered.

“You have one chance,” Genji said to him, switching back to English. “Tell me where your positions are, and how many men are there. If you do, I will let you live.”

The Yankee spit in Genji’s face, launching a glob of blood onto his cheek. Disgusted, Genji frowned, retrieving a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaning off the offending filth. He stood up, looking down on the Yankee as he put the handkerchief away, sheathing his _wakizashi._ “Kill him,” Genji ordered, turning away. “Make sure the other one sees him die slowly.”

“Yes, Lieutenant Shimada,” Sergeant Ehara said, bowing deeply. Genji stepped out, allowing the Sergeant to do what needed to be done. The sound of blood hitting bamboo soon followed the familiar noise of steel cutting through flesh. Hopefully now, the Yankee would see how pointless it was.

“Lieutenant Shimada?” Genji turned to see Zenyatta approaching, a curious look on his face. “I heard the screams, and I was… shall we say, morbidly curious when they stopped. The Americans, are they…?”

“Two are dead,” Genji replied coldly. “One was a security risk. The other had to learn the consequences of his actions.”

“His actions being?”

Genji looked to the Yankee’s body. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sergeant Ehara giving the other Yankee a cut on his cheek. Perhaps that would convince him to cooperate. “He refused to tell us what we wanted to know. He made his choice.”

“So his punishment is death? He learned so well, I don’t think he will make that mistake again.” Zenyatta asked, arching an eyebrow. “Lieutenant, others cannot bear your suffering for you. It is yours alone. Trying to pass it on to these soldiers will do you no favors.”

“Nonsense. These Yankees will either give us what we need, or they will die. We gain a tactical advantage either way,” Genji argued.

“Material favors can only bring a soul so far, Lieutenant Shimada. Perhaps if you walk the Eightfold Path once more, shed your ignorance like a butterfly sheds its cocoon, you will realize that even this small order of chaos cannot help you.”

Genji narrowed his eyes, his hand hovering over his _wakizashi._ “You are making very dangerous assertions, _Lieutenant._ Perhaps you should reconsider your words.”

“Suffering begets suffering. These wrong actions against the Americans will only invite more pain and suffering unto yourself.”

“Who are you to lecture me on suffering?!” Genji shouted, drawing his sword. “You are a coward, Zenyatta! You hide behind your philosophy and use it as a shield against criticism, but I see through your facade!”

Zenyatta did not flinch, or take his eyes away from Genji’s determined stare. He barely moved an inch, even with Genji’s blade mere inches away from him. “Go ahead, strike me down,” Zenyatta proclaimed. “That would make you feel better, temporarily I’m sure. But it would not fill the void in your heart, nor remove your suffering. If you truly wish to serve the Emperor without reservation, you must let go of the anger and pain that shackles you.”

The blade twitched in Genji’s hand, and though he very much wanted to take the sharp end of his _wakizashi_ and drive it deep into Zenyatta’s chest, he could not bring himself to do so. Morale was already low – what would slaughtering a fellow officer do to it? The sergeants in his platoon could certainly keep the most vocal grumbling quiet, but they could not prevent the hushed whispers and private thoughts of the men. Genji withdrew his sword, returning it to its sheath once more and sharply stepping back, performing an about face to get away from this situation. Anything to quell the disquiet in his soul.

He smoked alone near the edge of the perimeter, looking out at Guadalcanal’s dark horizon. He knew the Americans were out there, just waiting. Their defenses had only grown stronger, and continued attacks against their lines were becoming increasingly frustrating. These Yankees fought like men possessed, or at least the Marines did. The other Yankees, those men he knew his men could unnerve. They were excitable, anxious at every opportunity. In his mind, that’s how each American ought to have been – they should have been weak-willed, unable to resist the mighty warrior spirit that inhabited each man in his unit.

An aide interrupted his smoking, handing him a piece of paper. They were to evacuate Guadalcanal within the month.

* * *

_December 8 th, 1942_

_0631 hours_

_Somewhere on Guadalcanal_

Gabriel woke up in captivity once more. His wrists had been rubbed raw by the constant tension of the rope against them, which wasn’t helped by the moisture and torture the Japs inflicted on him. They threw dirty water on Gabriel constantly, jabbed at him with their bayonets to force him to flinch, and deprived him of food whenever it suited them. They laughed at him constantly, gave him cuts and bruises whenever they were bored, talked to each other and jeered at him in their disgusting language.

But today, there wasn’t a Jap in sight. The fire’s dying embers told him they had left a long time ago, maybe even during the night when he had somehow managed to fall asleep. He could hear rustling, though, the telltale sound of somebody – a lot of somebodies – moving through the underbrush. Were the Japs coming back, about to kill him? But that didn’t make sense. They may as well have done it when he was asleep if they were going to leave.

Instead, Sergeant Morrish came out from the treeline, rifle up with a handful of other Marines that he didn’t know behind him. Immediately, relief washed over him as Sarge ran over to Gabriel, working on cutting him free from the ropes. “Reyes, thank God you’re alive,” he muttered. “We thought for sure you’d bought the farm.”

“Not yet,” Gabriel muttered. “How’d you guys find me?”

“Top sent us out to find out what the Japs were doing,” he said. “Looks like they left the Island. We’re out of here, too, but I wasn’t leaving until I knew what happened to you guys.”

“Fucking _animals!”_ one of the Marines shouted, staring at Pilosyan’s dead body.

Sarge helped Gabriel stand up. He hadn’t been able to much move his legs since being captured by the Japs, and he was unsteady, shaking with every step. “We’ll make them pay for what they did to you, Reyes,” Morrish said. “Come on, let’s get off this goddamn rock.”

* * *

_December 20 th, 1942_

_2026 hours_

_Townsville, Australia_

Chief Williams always said that sailors had two great demons they must face in their lives. The first was shore leave after a long sail, following months of life on the ocean and little time to do anything but think and cut off from any vices that didn’t include smoking or gambling.

The second, he said, was their first wife.

Townsville didn’t offer much beyond hanging around the barracks and going out to drink. Sometimes, he could squint and forget for a moment that he was thousands of miles from home, since for the most part the green fields and sparse trees looked kind of like Indiana. There wasn’t much in the way of crops, but if the grass got any taller, he reckoned it’d look just like the corn fields back home. Sure, the people around here spoke funny and Vince said their warm beer wasn’t anywhere as good as the stuff he’d get at home, but it sure beat spending Christmas on-board the _Phillip._

Then again, spending Christmas 1942 out here in Australia wasn’t much looking better, either. The days were about as hot as summers back home, while the nights were comfortably cool. Not a speck of snow in sight, though, which didn’t seem to bother the Australians. It sure as hell bothered Jack and Vince, though, and they spent many of their drinking hours at the local pub waxing nostalgic about Christmases past and arguing about who had the colder year on record. Jack was fairly sure he was winning, and Vince was making up some of these temperatures to mess with him.

The bar that they had settled into today was populated mostly by other sailors, but a lot of Marines had made their way here too. Jack hadn’t met many of them – he preferred to keep to Vince’s company and avoided conversation – but rumor was nearly all of them had rotated off Guadalcanal. The few times Jack got a conversation with one, they regarded “The Island” as nothing short of Hell on earth, relaying horror stories of brutality and scenes that’d make any man shy away from war. There was jazz on the local radio, but Jack didn’t recognize any of the songs that it played. Maybe life on the ship had cut him off totally from the world.

He set his glass down, half-full of the same Australian beer he’d been sipping since they walked in. It was his second of the day, complemented by some peanuts that one of the bartenders had slid their way. Part of Jack wanted to get some real food, but he and Vince both were loathe to give away their American dollars in exchange for strange Australian “pounds.” Besides, what use was all the money they were getting if none of the banks around here could give it to them? Jack wondered some days if the Navy just _said_ they paid them for all the hard work they did and would hand out cash to whoever was left when the war was over.

“Hey, Jack, see that guy over there?” Vince said, bringing him out of his speculations about the high brass and getting paid. Vincewas leaning on the bar, turning away to cast a wary eye on some guy across the room, scowling in the corner of a booth and huddled over his beer like he was afraid somebody would take it. He wasn’t a sailor, definitely not with that stubble that was decidedly against regulations and a heavily ragged uniform filled with holes. Maybe a Marine, one of those guys that got off Guadalcanal?

“Yeah, I see him,” Jack said. “What about him?”

Vince didn’t take his eyes off him, knocking back another sip of his beer. “I don’t like the way he’s looking at us.”

“Well, doesn’t look like he likes the way _we’re_ looking at _him._ ”

By now the Marine had started staring back at them, his dark eyes narrowed and a mean look fixed on his face. He didn’t seem to even move, just staring at them as if he could kill them with a look alone. To Jack, his eyes were somehow both hollow, and filled with an intensity that unnerved him.

“I’m gonna go see what this guy’s problem is,” Vince muttered. Jack weakly protested as he followed, hoping that they wouldn’t get into trouble here and now. The place was packed with a _lot_ of Marines, and if even half the things Jack had heard about Guadalcanal were true, he didn’t want to get into a fight with any of them. As Vince and Jack neared the Marine, he glared at them, the frown on his face practically set in stone.

“What the hell do _you_ two jokers want?” he asked, holding his beer tightly.

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing, fella,” Vince said. “What’s your deal?”

The Marine let out a short huff that could have been mistaken for a laugh, had he not kept the same grim look on his face. “My _deal_ is I got off fucking Guadalcanal just to have you two staring at me like I’m some kind of fucking animal.”

“Vince, let’s go,” Jack muttered, trying to pull him away. Vince only jerked his should back in response, squaring off with the Marine.

“Hey, pal, news flash, a lot of guys here got off Guadalcanal. You’re not special.”

“Well, whoop-de-fucking-doo,” the Marine said. “What, two squids want to tell me what it’s like to be special? You guys gonna go back on your little boat and putter around the island a few times while real men fight?”

“Uh, she’s a ship, actually,” Jack muttered.

“Hey, fuck you jarhead, without us you’d be sitting back Stateside waiting for the Japs to come bomb you.”

“Do me a favor,” the Marine said, slamming back his beer. “Go back to your stupid little boat and make out with each other.”

Jack couldn’t have stopped Vince’s fist from flying to the Marine’s face if he tried. The rage that had consumed Vince was one that Jack never thought he’d see, much less experience meted out on somebody so rapidly. Then again, he didn’t exactly _blame_ Vince, Jack was about ready to do the same. Of course, such an assault provoked a response from every nearby Marine, who thought that some random squid had wailed on one of their buddies, and rushed over to assist as if they were back of Guadalcanal and fighting Japs. Jack fended off attacks from bloodthirsty Marines eager to protect their buddy’s honor, and this subsequent gang-up on Jack and Vincent meant that other sailors also joined in the fray. Jack lost track of both Vincent and the Marine that had started this whole mess in short order, staving off half-drunken punches thrown by Marines and confused sailors alike. His own tipsiness wasn’t much helping in his defense, though he could at least hold his own at this point.

Whistles began to blow. MPs had arrived on the scene, banging their billy clubs on tables and shouting that their _real_ enemy was the Japs, so why the Hell were they all beating up on each other? The enraged, drunken crowd, Jack included, began to disperse or were arrested, with several fingers flying towards Jack, Vince and the Marine that started it all. Before Jack could even offer a defense, one of the MPs had locked him in handcuffs and thrown him in the brig.

He _definitely_ wasn’t sure how he’d explain this to Mom and Dad.

* * *

Gabriel’s head hurt like hell. Part of it was the drinking, and resultant hangover. The second was the shaved bear of a guy that’d knocked him around yesterday in the bar. His scrawny little buddy wasn’t much better – he’d seen the fellow fight and knew he’d gotten some good licks in. Hell, half the bar had. It was a pretty nice fight, all things considered, until the MPs came and broke it up. For now, all Gabriel could really do was just lie back and wait for this pounding headache to go away.

And his hangover, too.

The two sailors, who elected to introduce themselves as Jack Morrison and Vincent Fontana, sat across from him, shooting the shit.Vincent wasn’t too thrilled about some of the shit he’d said last night – and if what he said was true, Gabriel could see why he’d be throwing punches. This Jack guy, though, he just never shut the hell up. Somehow, Vincent had gotten him started on talking about a fucking _farm_ of all things, and the entire time Gabriel tried to sleep off the drunken escapades of the night before, this fucking backwoods, Protestant cross-clutching, corn-fed, 20-pounds-soaking-wet, wispy sack of pure annoyance talked for so long and _so intimately_ about how exactly to harvest corn that Gabriel honestly thought he had finally died and gone to hell. Listening to him made being in a Jap camp feel like a fucking vacation. When that wasn’t enough, he was sitting there lecturing Gabriel on how his uniform was out of code, how his grooming standards weren’t appropriate, how his demeanor was counter to military regulations, all sorts of chickenshit that he couldn’t give enough of a fuck about. Somehow, some- _fucking-_ how, Gabriel had managed to get into a barfight with a walking handbook.

And he’d even gone and lost it, too.

Losing was humiliating enough, but losing to a farm boy that, by his own fucking admission, had never even seen a boat before joining the Navy and some punk Italian from New York was worse than being captured by the Japs. At least he could give the Japs a run for their money in a one on one. These squids had the fucking audacity to up and clock him in the face after a night of drinking. He sighed, crossing his hands behind his head as he lay down on the cot, trying to nurse away the headache. So far, it wasn’t working.

“Is that all you did on your stupid farm,” Gabriel finally asked, interrupting another segue into shucking corn. “Just chop down corn and plant it again for next year?”

“No, it’s not all we did,” Jack said indignantly. “Gotta keep everything up and running, fix up the house. That sort of thing.”

Vincent scoffed, shaking his head. “Hey, don’t mind him, Jack. He doesn’t know what hard work is.”

“Hey, fuck you, greaseball. You’ve got no idea how much I did at home.”

“Yeah? Where’s home then?”

“LA. Grand state of California, home sweet fucking home.”

Jack nodded, his eyes wide. “Wow, that’s a pretty big place. I was there for a bit before we shipped out last year, I don’t know how you could live there.”

Gabriel snorted. “I don’t know how _you_ could live all the way out in bumfuck nowhere, Indiana.”

The squid shrugged, and for a moment Gabriel thought his buddy was about to respond. He tensed up, the same way he had tensed up before swinging at Gabriel last night, but before anyone could move a muscle, one of the MPs came in, knocking his billy club against the bars. “Alright, you dopes,” he said, unlocking their temporary prison. “Get the hell out of my brig. You’re all free to go. Do me a favor and don’t make me come out to get you guys again, got it?”

“Sure thing, Chief,” the sailors said in unison. Gabriel muttered a thanks of his own, grabbing his cap and inching his way past the MP to head out to freedom. Maybe he’d be lucky, and they’d have some Japs for him to shoot at in the meanwhile.

At least the Japs didn’t talk about corn all the fucking time.


	6. Little Resistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel takes part in the landings on Betio.

_There are roads which must not be followed, armies which must not be attacked, towns which must not be besieged, positions which must not be contested. - Sun Tzu_

_November 20 th, 1943_

_0900 hours_

_Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll_

The ocean sprayed at Gabriel, now proudly bearing his Corporal stripes, again as their little LVT rocked into the waves. It was a familiar routine by now, something they had trained for what felt like a million times by this point. Sergeant Morrish reminded them that the Japs had been pounded by the Navy for nearly three hours with the biggest guns in the fleet, and that there should be little resistance. After all, it’s what had happened on The Island, and the rumors he heard from other Marines said that the Japs all but abandoned their posts at the beaches elsewhere. So why should this stupid island be any different? After all, it wasn’t like the Japs had changed. Overhead, planes from the nearby carriers flew overhead, buzzing over them and dropping bombs on the Jap positions on shore.

“Listen up, Marines!” Sergeant Morrish said as they neared the coast. “Navy’s been pounding the hell out of the Japs. We’re gonna go up on that beach, and fuck them up like we did on Guadal, got it? We hit that sand, you fucking _move!_ Our objectives are targets inland, we’re not gonna pussyfoot around! Reyes, I want you moving inland ASAP, you’re on point!”

Gabriel gripped his M1 Garand tightly, nodding sharply. By now, they’d gotten the same rifles that the Army had, and Gabriel was proud to say he was an even better marksman with the M1 than he ever had been with the Springfield. Large, open fields and plenty of time to practice marksmanship in Australia certainly helped with that. He shivered, the effects of the ocean spray misting him just now becoming apparent. He’d warm up when he hit the beach though – combat always warmed him up just enough. The booming echoes of falling bombs and naval gunfire cascaded through the ocean, each one passing through him at different times and sometimes mixing to shake him all at once.

Something else boomed just as quickly though. A massive Jap gun had opened up, its shell slamming right into a nearby LVT, which exploded in a massive fireball and threw limbs and metal all around them.

“Holy _shit!_ ” one of the new kids shouted. “What the _fuck?!_ ”

“Shit!” Sarge yelled. “Jap gun on the coast!”

Gabriel shoved his way up front, pounding on the steel plate that separated them from the driver. “Hey! Fucking move! Get us away from that gun!”

“Thirty seconds!” the coxswain shouted in response, closing his armored hatch and propelling them forward just as slowly as they’d been going before.

Another explosion, far too close for comfort. “Another LVT’s been hit!” Kowalski shouted.Their LVT inched ever closer, before shuddering to a sudden halt. Machine gun fire pinged off their transport, as the Navy’s big guns landed intermittently on the coast. One of the new kids – Gabriel had never learned his name – leaned over the side of the transport, looking down.

“We’re stuck on the reef!” he yelled, looking back at the Sarge. “It’s the-”

A bullet planted itself right in the kid’s head, spraying blood and brains damn near everywhere. Sergeant Morrish yelled at them to get off the LVT, but just as he did, it began moving again. Once more, they lurched slowly towards the actual beach, bullets pinging off the transport as they went. Only when they hit the beach and the machine gun fire was as loud as Gabriel remembered it being on Guadalcanal did he feel it was actually safe to get out. Though, safe was a relative word here.

He jumped over the side, Garand in hand. Rest of his squad was working on moving up to a sea wall, moving under withering fire from Jap rifles and machine guns. Gabriel took his first steps on solid ground – and immediately fell over. One of the shell holes from the Navy guns had made a huge fucking crater, and he’d stepped right into it. Cursing as he wiped sand off his rifle, Gabriel got back on his feet and made his way up front, shaking his head in disgust.

“What the hell went wrong?!” Kowalski shouted. “There wasn’t supposed to _be_ any resistance!”

Another squad was nearby, huddled together behind the logs and sand. “What do we do?”

“Get moving!” one of the other Marines said. “Find the Sarge!”

Burst upon burst of Jap machine fire put to rest any ideas of moving forward. Gabriel couldn’t even poke his head out, unless he wanted to lose it. Support seemed lacking. Where was the Navy now, with their planes and big guns when they needed it most? He looked out to the raging ocean behind them – a bigger landing craft carrying tanks got hung up on the same reef that Gabriel had gotten stuck on earlier.

“Reyes!” Wilkie, one of the few friends Gabriel still had from Guadalcanal, inched his way over keeping his helmet strapped on tight. “Fuck, am I glad to see you! Thought you’d fuckin’ bought it out there!”

“It’s just Hour One,” he shouted back. “How’s about we wait ‘till it’s end of day before we go popping the champagne and catching up, yeah?”

The massive Jap gun opened up again, scoring a direct hit on the LCM out near the reef. The resulting boom sounded like it had exploded just mere feet from him, with a shower of steel emanating from the core of the hull. A different LCM trundled ashore, dropping its ramp to allow two diminutive Stuart tanks to roll out.

“Ha-hey,” Nichols, their machine gunner, shouted. “We got some armor support, boys!”

The sound of the heavy gas engines roared as the tracks squeaked and squealed, moving over rocks up to the sea wall. Within mere seconds, though, the tanks lurched to a stop as Jap artillery slammed right into the front of the tanks, setting one on fire and blowing the turret off the other.

“Hey, Nichols,” Gabriel yelled. “Try not to choke on your own fucking foot!”

Another LCM moved up, despite withering Japanese fire and the shells thrown down by the huge gun on the point. Naval gunfire barraged the coast constantly, landing just short of actually doing damage to the Japs and wrecking their positions. The ramp dropped again, this time allowing a handful of the bigger M4 Shermans to roll ashore.

“Reyes! Nichols!” Morrish shouted above the gunfire. “Get those fucking tanks up here! Guide them in!”

“Got it!” Gabriel yelled back, sprinting under fire to approach the lead Sherman. The driver poked his head out as the cannon and machine guns fired, trying to follow Gabriel and Nichols as they wildly waved their hands around and tried to direct the tanks up. Nichols ran back to the sea wall, shouting at the squad to move away and give the tanks a clear path while Gabriel did his best to coordinate the tanks. Japs must not have had any guns that could take these out, since they stood strong even after taking a few direct hits. All the better, Gabriel resolved. If they could just get past this sea wall, find a way into the Jap defensive lines, then they could at least _do_ something and wouldn’t have to resort to this bullshit.

The tank Gabriel was guiding soon began to tip forward. It had crossed a shell hole caused by the naval bombardment, slipping and sliding in before the driver could reverse course. Gabriel could do nothing but back off in double-time, watching in horror as the Sherman sank into the pit. The others figured out the hole was there, and navigated around it just in time for Gabriel to hear Sergeant Morrish call to advance. By now, the sound of machine gun fire was just background noise, and even the whistling bombs and subsequent explosions weren’t anything more than just footnotes in his mind. He turned around to check distance to the sea wall – not too far now. With the tanks, they could easily start making progress inland to the Japs. The driver of the tank waved him off – no more need to navigate them by foot. Time to use his rifle and start shooting Japs instead of playing traffic officer.

Gabriel charged forward with his squad into Jap fire, covered by the Shermans as they lobbed high-explosive shells overhead and into the Jap defenses. Lot of bunkers made out of logs and sand, with cutouts that were perfect for Jap machine guns and rifles to poke out of and fill the air with bullets. Jap rifles and helmets poked out from the trenches, and the squad’s progress was hampered for a moment when they came across barbed wire. One of the Shermans took it upon itself to clear the wire for them, running it over and flattening out a path for them to flood through. Still, the fire was overwhelming, and Gabriel had to keep his head low as he moved ever closer.

“Alright, Marines,” Sergeant Morrish yelled. “Get some grenades in those trenches!”

Gabriel ripped off one of his Mk. 2 grenades from the webbing, pulling the pin and lobbing it over into the Jap trench. Muted explosions soon followed, and so too did Gabriel and the squad, jumping into the trench and seizing it from the dead and mutilated Jap defenders. Those who didn’t have the courtesy to die quietly were shot, executed for the simple act of not dying quick enough. Gabriel checked back to see where the tanks had gone – they were still rolling close, providing covering fire and acting as mobile cover for other Marines. So far, so good.

Sergeant Morrish led them down the trench, heading to another Jap outpost containing a machine gun nest. They fought in close quarters with the MG crew, utilizing rifle fire and the bayonet, occasionally an extra grenade thrown far ahead of the steps and kinks in the trenches to avoid concussion blasts and fragments. An explosion came from behind them – Gabriel looked back to see one of the tanks halted, the crew jumping out to recover one of their own. They dragged someone out of the tank, who was missing his legs and crying out louder than Gabriel even thought possible. One of the other tanks nearby took a shell right to the turret, cracking the gun and blowing a massive chunk of it out, as if somebody had taken an ice cream scoop to the metal.

The machine gun nest was soon cleared of Japs by way of rifle fire and judicious use of grenades, allowing them to move on to the next trench line. Across the way, maybe another seventy or eighty meters by Gabriel’s estimation, the Japs had set up another trench line and were busy giving them hell with every gun they had. With their tanks either down and out or only useful as mobile machine gun bunkers, and the Navy unwilling to drop further ordnance inland, it looked like their advance was grinding to a halt. Gabriel wasn’t sure how many shots he had fired during the day, but the light weight of his kit surely meant he had expended a hell of a lot of ammo, despite resupplies. Before he even knew it, night was falling and the Japs had resorted to harassing them with sporadic gunfire rather than letting anyone move even an inch on the rock. Gabriel and his squad slept in the Jap trenches, waking up only often enough to help repel a potential Jap counterattack that never came.

* * *

_November 21 st, 1943_

_0637 hours_

_Betio Island, Tarawa Atoll_

“Wake and shake it!” Sergeant Morrish yelled, racking back the bolt on his weapon. “Japs are bringing your coffee!”

Scattered rifle fire filled the air, and through the dim morning dawn Gabriel could just barely see the outlines of advancing Japs. He grabbed his rifle, brushing grits of sand off and shouldering it. Jap bugles sounded off in the dwindling darkness, probably some sort of communication thing. Wilkie had fallen asleep next to him the previous night, where they’d talked some about life back home, but it looked like he wasn’t moving now. “Hey, Wilkie, fucking get up, Japs are coming!”

Wilkie didn’t move an inch. _Fuck,_ couldn’t he see what was going on? Gabriel kicked him in the side, hoping to wake him the fuck up. Instead, Wilkie slumped over. Furrowing his brow, Gabriel looked over at Wilkie, his eyes immediately drawn to the slit in his throat. Blood had poured out of it at one point, but by now it was dry and scattered bits of sand clung to his skin, a soulless, hollow look in his eyes. When the fuck had this happened? How had any Japs gotten close enough to cut open his throat without someone else seeing him, or killing someone else?

The sound of another banzai charge brought Gabriel back to reality. Time to start killing Japs, take revenge on them for killing Wilkie. The rifle’s recoil pushed back hard against him as he started squeezing the trigger, firing at the Japs with wild abandon. The empty clip popped out with a loud _ping,_ and he initiated his reload procedure without a second thought, shoving the fresh clip in and going back to work. The Japs had brought up tanks of their own, small little things barely even taller than the Japs they were accompanying. One of them shuddered to a halt, apparently taking a hit of some kind. The other tanks surged forward regardless, ignorant to both infantry and armor losses.

“Those fucking tanks are chewing us up!” Nichols yelled. “What do we do?!”

Gabriel scanned the scene. Lot of dead Japs. Infantry attack had petered out, but the tanks kept pushing forward regardless. They didn’t have any anti-tank weapons. _Fuck it._ “Hey, Nichols, come with me!”

“What the fuck do you want _me_ for?!”

“Just shut up and come on!” Gabriel shouted, jumping out of the trench. Jap tank looked to be in decent order. Maybe the crew had just gotten killed, or dazed – either way, Gabriel was sure they could take it over. After all, friendly tanks had gotten knocked out or were fighting Japs elsewhere, and what better tool to use to fight a tank than another tank? He and Nichols sprinted towards the dead tank, with Nichols cursing the entire way as they dodged Jap bullets. They paused only to take cover in a shell hole when Jap machine gun fire got too heavy to try to keep moving.

“Okay, great fucking plan Reyes, now we’re at a shell hole in the middle of a fucking airfield,” Nichols muttered. “ _Now_ what?”

“See that tank?” Gabriel asked, grinning as he jerked his head forwards. “We’re gonna take it.”

“We’re gonna _what?_ ”

Gabriel didn’t even answer him, scrambling out of the shell hole the second he heard the MG pause to reload. The Jap bullets cracked and whipped at the air around them as they charged towards the tank, bouncing off the bogies and metal mesh exhaust cover. Gabriel looked around – the machine gunners had grown bored of shooting at them, and were focusing on shooting his squad back at the trenches. The tanks hadn’t seen their mad dash up to the knocked out tank either.

“Alright, let’s fucking get in,” Gabriel said.

Nichols looked the tank over, eyeing it suspiciously. “How the hell are we gonna do that?”

“I don’t fucking know, there’s got to be a door or something on the goddamn thing, right?” He climbed up on top, mucking around with the turret. He’d seen Jap troops get in and out of it before like this. The top of the tank’s turret had some hinges one it, with a line in between the circular roof. Must have been the hatch. He pulled the thing open, revealing a small gun and a plethora of what looked like 37mm rounds. Well, that and a dead Jap. Gabriel pulled the dead guy out, unceremoniously tossing him on the airfield’s concrete as Nichols let out a disgusted yelp.

“How am _I_ supposed to get in this thing?” Nichols asked.

“The driver’s in front here,” Gabriel yelled out. “Look at that little square on the front bulge!”

Grumbling, Nichols moved around to the front, swinging open the front hatch and dragging another dead Jap out, assuming command of the driver’s seat as he closed up the hatch. “Okay, cool, so now – _oh what in the goddamn fuck?!_ ”

“What?” Gabriel asked.

“There’s another dead fucking Jap in here! He’s missing half his fucking face!”

He grumbled, testing out the turret controls. Still working, if incredibly stiff and hard to move. “Well, I don’t know, deal with it. We gotta kill some Jap tanks, alright? Come on, let’s get this thing moving.”

“I can’t do a damn thing,” Nichols complained. “Everything’s in fucking Japanese!”

“Holy fuck, you idiot,” Gabriel yelled. “It’s like driving a tractor! You’ve heard of that, haven’t you?” _God_ , Gabriel ground his teeth just thinking about that. How long had he heard that stupid fucking squid ramble on about his fucking corn farm only to spout that shit out first opportunity months later?

“I don’t know how to drive a tractor!” Nichols yelled back.

As he rotated the turret, Gabriel paused, shooting a wild-eyed look at the back of Nichols’ head. “I thought you said you grew up on a farm!”

“Yeah, I did, but we didn’t have no tractors!”

_"What kind of a fucking farm doesn’t have tractors?!”_

Nichols shrugged, throwing his hands up. “I don’t know, mine?!”

Gabriel grumbled even more, putting his eye up to the gun’s optics. First Jap tank in sight. Gun controls were pretty similar to the M3 anti-tank gun that he’d used before in a hell of a pinch. He squeezed the button trigger, hearing the gun go off with a muted boom. The Jap tank he had targeted shuddered to a stop, a massive spark flying out from the side as the 37mm round slammed into the side armor. Unlocking the breech allowed the spent shell to clatter and bang on every conceivable surface, to which Gabriel immediately shoved in another round that he hoped to god was armor-piercing. Nichols managed to figure out how the driver’s spot worked, jostling them around as he put the tank in gear and rolled it towards the Japs at a weird angle, which unfortunately threw off Gabriel’s aim as he tried to rotate the turret around to get his bearings back on the Jap tanks.

“Keep the fucking thing steady!” Gabriel yelled, succeeding in shoving a new round in and locking the breech.

“Well, I don’t know what the fuck you want from me, I ain’t an expert in driving this thing!”

Gabriel ignored him, trying to balance the shaking turret with the bouncing gun as he got focus back on target. Another round out, maybe another hit, what the fuck did he know, and another reload procedure done and over with. Either way, the Jap tanks were starting to thin out now, either killed by the tank he had commandeered or just taking enough fire that they decided to retreat. He popped out of the tank’s hatch to get a better look around, not spotting any other enemy tanks and nothing else to shoot at.

“Alright, let’s get out of this fucking thing,” Gabriel yelled. “I don’t want one of our own guys to shoot us.”

By now, the dawn had turned to day, and Gabriel pulled back his sleeve to check his watch as he ran back to the main line with the squad. Half past ten. Had he really been fighting the Japs for this long? He slid into the trench with Nichols, where Sergeant Morrish chewed him out for being so fucking stupid to go out and steal a Jap tank. But, good news was, they got to cross the airfield _again._ Now that the Jap attack had been countered, it was their turn to head over with the platoon and secure the opposite end of the airfield. The Japs didn’t fire on them as they advanced, but Gabriel had learned on Guadalcanal that this was deceptive. The Japs loved waiting until Gabriel and his buddies were right up on them before opening up with everything they had. At any second, he expected some hidden Jap sniper to blow somebody’s head off.

Instead, they approached the opposite end of the airfield without taking any fire, to find dead Japs scattered all around. They lay in the trenches with their weapons close by, some even still clutching them as if they still expected to fight in the afterlife. “What the fuck,” Sarge muttered. “Who killed these guys?”

“Maybe bombs?” one of the new Marines muttered.

“Bombs wouldn’t do this,” Gabriel said. “They’d be blown to fucking pieces.”

“Secure the area,” Sarge said. “And don’t you fucking idiots dare touch a single Jap body before we’re done! I don’t want any of you to buy it to some Jap booby trap.”

Gabriel lowered his rifle, putting it in a low ready position as they headed through the camp. It didn’t seem all that bad, all things considered. Maybe the Japs had just decided to kill themselves rather than put up a fight. He kicked one of the bodies, but found it groaning. That wasn’t right. Dead guys don’t groan.

“ _Tennōheika banzai!"_

The “dead” Japs sprung up, bayonets fixed and swords out, immediately locking themselves in close combat with Gabriel’s squad. He reacted without even thinking, turning his rifle down and firing two shots into the Jap he just kicked. Somebody started screaming their head off behind him. Gabriel whipped around to fire at another Jap, trying to shove Nichols’ BAR off to stab him. Somebody else was about to get stabbed, which resulted in Gabriel emptying his entire clip. A half dozen _pinging_ noises filled the air, and all went quiet once more.

“Oh fuck,” Nichols muttered. “Sarge!”

He turned to where the Sarge had been, spotting a dead Jap officer with a bloodied sword nextto him, and a massive slash wound across the Sarge’s chest. It was deep enough that the stark white of the Sergeant Morrish’s bones were clearly visible, blood pouring out of him faster than the sulfa powder could absorb it. There was no bandage of any sort that’d patch this up, and they were far away from any kind of field hospital. As Gabriel watched Sarge’s blood leak out, he knew there was no saving him. He’d barely make it back to the shore, let alone to a ship to get to actual doctors.

In a blink of an eye, Gabriel had watched the most solid, most dependable Marine die. Not with a bang and a victorious yell like they all had been told they should die, but with a muted whimper and a quiet wheeze. All eyes turned to him – as Corporal, he was second in command. Now he was _first_ in command.

“Well, Reyes,” one of the new kids said. “You’re the old breed around here. What do we do?”

 _Old._ He wasn’t even out of his 20’s. Now it was up to him to lead these men, his brothers, safely through the rest of this campaign? How the hell was anyone supposed to do that? How the hell had Morrish done it on The Island?

San Diego never prepared him for this.


	7. Sakura, Sakura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Genji prepares for the next stage of his war.

_Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. - Sun Tzu_

_November 22 nd, 1943_

_1645 hours_

_Hanamura District, Kyoto, Japan_

Genji could not help but stare out the window. The snow had begun to fall this year, individual flakes dancing and pirouetting in the wind like they were falling cherry blossom leaves, scattering themselves about like they had done for centuries. He found himself reminded of when he and Hanzo were children, playing in the garden and getting into trouble with the local boys. It felt like thousands of years ago, but Genji knew in his mind it had only been a scant thirteen years. How long it felt like. Nearly six years of war, coming up on seven, made the memories he had of home and childhood seem like a distant, far-off dream. They were so far detached from the world he understood today that trying to comprehend them was almost like attempting to invent a new color, or describe the unknown.

As he watched the snow fall, he couldn’t help but think that Zenyatta would undoubtedly have something to say about this. These thoughts and struggles of the mind did not suit a warrior like Genji. That sort of rabble was more Zenyatta’s domain. And yet, these decidedly unwarrior-like thoughts continued to dominate his thinking. _Hanzo_. He had not thought of his brother for nearly three years. He had been dispatched to Germany in late 1940. Was it this month, or in December, shortly before the new year? Genji wasn’t sure, and that bothered him. Some days, Genji dared to hope that when mail call came, he would receive a letter from his brother, but he knew Hanzo would never write him.

“Lieutenant Shimada?” Captain Yada asked, bringing Genji out of his thoughts. “Are we boring you?”

He blinked, shaking his head as he returned his gaze to the table. A map of the current situation, including known American and British fleets, lay before him. Markers displayed Japan’s activities in China and the South Pacific, almost all the way to Burma. “No, of course not, Captain.”

“Excellent. Then we can continue.” Captain Yada took his riding crop, gesturing to New Guinea and the Dutch colonies. “Regimental command has ordered us to continue our offensives against the Southern Resource Area. We shall be deploying to New Guinea soon to aid in an upcoming offensive against the Australians and Americans.”

“The Australians?” an officer Genji didn’t recognize asked. “I hear they fight like devils.”

“Devils though they may be, our warrior spirit will shine through and cast them to the pits of hell,” Captain Yada answered. “This offensive is of the utmost importance, gentlemen. It is up to us to ensure that Japan’s ultimate victory is realized.”

Genji stroked his chin. “Captain, if I may, these markers here, what do they represent?”

“That is an American landing on Tarawa. I have been assured by regimental command that the men holding out there are destroying the Americans and throwing them back into the sea. I believe we have submarines on the way to provide reinforcements and destroy the American fleet.”

Nodding, Genji straightened himself up. Even if the loss of security islands near Guadalcanal looked grim, the Americans were going to too many places at once. They undoubtedly would overextend themselves, and that would be when Genji and his men would strike, shatter them like a ceramic plate. “When do we leave for New Guinea?”

“Next week,” Captain Yada said. “Ensure every man in your platoons is prepared for action and understands the importance of the tasks ahead of us.”

* * *

_December 4 th, 1943_

_1422 hours_

_New Guinea_

The jungles of New Guinea were not that much different from Guadalcanal, Genji determined. He and his men had landed somewhere on New Guinea with the regimental command, ordered to occupy the Finisterre Mountain Range. Thick fog settled over the front, destroying visibility and preventing effective recon even though they commanded an excellent position on the Finisterre range. Genji and Zenyatta spent the first hour of their day at the defensive line touring the positions, noting that the machine guns were excellently sited and the trenches, although rather crude given the nature of the ground on which they lay, were well-connected with one another and as extensive as he had hoped.

“There is no barbed wire,” Zenyatta noted, jotting this down in his field notebook. “And no minefield either.”

“Look at the slopes,” Genji replied, gesturing to the mountain crests that disappeared into the fog. “There is virtually no need for them. This terrain is a formidable obstacle to any foe, no matter how well-motivated they are.”

Zenyatta nodded, staring into the cryptic fog as if he had some way of seeing past the mist, a clarity that few men could claim to have. He stored his pencil in the spiral column of his field notebook, adjusting his glasses with a pair of fingers dirty from climbing up the mountain. “What may be impossible for us, I believe is very much possible for our foe, Lieutenant Shimada. The Australian, if the reports I have read are to be believed, is a foe who is to be respected and feared.”

“The Australians are rogue, colonizing Westerners who lack the proper warrior spirit,” Genji shot back. “They are a nation composed of dangerous criminals and lawless anarchists. They cannot function as a proper military force.”

Zenyatta arched an eyebrow, tilting his head curiously at Genji. “Did you not proclaim something similar about the Americans when we arrived on Guadalcanal? Was your theory of the might of warrior spirit proven right or wrong during that campaign? My memory and my meditations had informed me that your predictions rarely bear the fruit of righteousness that you so seek.”

“I will not entertain your drivel today, Lieutenant,” Genji snapped.

“That may be, but I would caution against the hubris that enveloped us during the campaign on Guadalcanal. We must apply all lessons we learn as we push forward, both in search of greater understanding and victory in the future.”

Genji waved his hand at Zenyatta, hoping to drive him away for the time being. There were more pressing matters at hand, such as the Australians who no doubt were mustering troops just beyond the fog even now. The telephone wires had been laid – rather poorly, by his judgment – between the main line and outlying posts elsewhere along the ridge, which in theory allowed them to alert the main line in case of enemy attack. Between the thick fog and isolated nature of these outposts, Genji wondered how effectively they could respond to an enemy incursion.

Captain Yada soon called his two subordinates to his headquarters, a simple dugout embedded into the side of the mountain. Inside, he proudly displayed the Rising Sun flag as well as the company banner, a symbol of which they could flock to and cherish in the worst of times. A map of New Guinea, including the very mountains upon which they stood, dominated the center of the headquarters room on top of a simple wooden table, as Captain Yada stood puzzling before it. He perpetually kept one hand stroking his chin, the other on the pommel of his katana. He scarcely acknowledged that Genji and Zenyatta had entered until they stood at attention and bowed in respect to him.

“Gentlemen,” Captain Yada began once he had realized they were there. “The Australians are the main obstacle in our path as we prepare to conduct our next great offensive. The engineer’s officer, Captain Kazehaya, is reluctant to launch an attack. You two have seen the positions first-hand – do you believe it wise to attack? The Australians surely are not prepared for an assault.”

Genji nodded, keeping himself strictly stiff and formal for this occasion. “The fog unfortunately does prevent passive reconnaissance measures, but I believe if we send out a patrol, we can determine the location of the majority of Australian positions.”

“I would believe such a move to be foolish, Captain, with all due respect,” Lieutenant Zenyatta said. Genji could barely contain his shock. How dare he countermand the clear implications from Captain Yada? It was obvious he wanted to order an attack. Did Lieutenant Zenyatta not think before he spoke? He stared back at the Captain, fearful of the repercussions. Instead, Captain Yada just looked at Lieutenant Zenyatta curiously, silently nodding as if he expected him to explain further.

“The engineers have not properly prepared our position,” he said, handing Captain Yada his notes from the day. _As if he had the time to read over Zenyatta’s scribbling,_ Genji thought, internally rolling his eyes. “As my notes reflect, we lack a proper minefield and barbed wire. The engineers are to be commended on their ingenuity in constructing initial defenses and the trenches, though.”

“I see,” Captain Yada said, studying the notes and stroking his chin once more. “Hm. Lieutenant Shimada, the meteorological services predict the fog will lift by tomorrow. Can you prepare men from your platoon to mount a reconnaissance mission?”

“Yes, sir,” Genji said, masking his disgust with Zenyatta. “We will honor the Emperor and your orders as soon as possible.”

Nodding, Captain Yada dismissed them. The Captain did not seem to mind Zenyatta’s insubordination, but it bothered Genji immensely. Who did he think he was? Zenyatta lectured Genji on proper soldiering and the way of the warrior, each unwanted lecture intertwined with his brand of Buddhist philosophy, and for the first few lectures Genji at least pretended to listen. Now, though, his lectures were irritating to the point that it was almost driving Genji to murder.

“You should not have countered his wishes,” Genji said, scowling as they left Captain Yada’s tent. “The Captain was eager to find the Australians, and you have destroyed his hopes. You should feel lucky he does not see fit to punish us.”

Zenyatta did not show any emotion, instead slowly taking a deep breath in. He readjusted his glasses, looking out at the fog that refused to take its leave of the battlefield. “Lieutenant, we serve an oath to our Emperor, do we not? To dutifully serve him and preserve the Japanese nation?”

“Yes, this is correct,” Genji replied, confused. What was he getting at?

“To what end do we serve the Emperor in abandoning good positions, even those which are underprepared and lacking in defensive measures, to attack a foe we are unsure exists or not? We know nothing of the Australians, where they are, how many they are, or their general attitude. This is not the way.”

Genji scoffed, shaking his head. “What do you think we conduct reconnaissance for? When the fog clears, we can both observe the Australians and prepare an offensive. They cannot stand up to the Emperor’s finest.”

“I see a pattern developing,” Zenyatta noted. “Do you?”

“The only _pattern_ I see is one where you continue to dishonor the Emperor and Navy with your treasonous words!” Genji snapped. “Be lucky I do not report you!”

Zenyatta nodded solemnly, turning away from him to head to the officer’s quarters. “I see. Peace be upon you, Lieutenant Shimada. I will pray for the fog to clear in due time.”

* * *

_December 27 th, 1943_

_0800 hours_

_Finisterre Range, New Guinea_

Genji had to give the Australians at least one reserved piece of praise – they were excellent scouters, countering the patrols they had dispatched when the fog cleared last week and allowed them the ability to orient themselves properly. From their positions on the point, Genji could see down to the Australians, but thick vegetation prevented direct observation, leaving only foot patrols as acceptable means of furnishing intelligence. And yet, each time Genji devised a new route for his patrols to take in order to find the enemy and ascertain his positions, they were inevitably discovered and soundly beaten, forced to break off far too early and learning nothing other than what the sound of British-made rifles sounded like.

He scowled, looking out at the nebulous Australian positions ahead of him. They still refused to allow themselves to be observed, and with his recon patrols providing frustratingly few answers, Captain Yada was not inclined to order an attack. Part of Genji believed that Lieutenant Zenyatta secretly took pleasure in this, had his own plans to improve their defenses not run into problems. The engineering company’s officers scoffed at Lieutenant Zenyatta’s suggestions and recommended he stick to his own business, and leave the complications of combat engineering to them. Thus, aside from the wood and earth bunkers, trenches, and barbed wire, there were no further additions to their defensive structures.

The morning was calm, almost unusually so as the sun had risen high in the sky. Bushes, undergrowth, and trees obfuscated the Australians, and Genji was entirely certain they were preparing _something._ After all, the weeks did not pass without change, and far be it from him to delude himself into believing his foe would sit quietly and wait for Genji and his men to be prepared. Maybe staring at the trees would help him determine what to do next. It was good weather for a potential patrol.

However, dark shadows cast themselves over the trenches, and telltale whistling began to arrive. He knew immediately what this was. There was an aerial attack underway on their lines right now, and Genji was reasonably certain that these were not friendly aircraft. Somebody began ringing a bell, just as one of his sergeants gave the alert to take cover for the impending air attack. He grabbed his rifle, sprinting to the nearby bunker as the first bombs fell, sending waves of pressure and air that felt as if they’d shove him down into the mud. In there, Genji took cover alongside a machine gunner and his assistant, with a grim-looking sergeant from the engineering company trapped with them. The earth shook as the explosions made speaking impossible, and all they could do was wait for the bombing to end.

An hour passed, a hellishly long time in which they were constantly subjected to the dull whirring of Australian planes and the whistling of bombs, subsequently followed up by shuddering booms that knocked dirt loose and threatened to annihilate their bunker whole. By the time the assault from the heavens had ended, the machine gunner and sergeant had recovered, prepared to face the Australians. However, the machine gunner’s assistant was not so easily comforted, and spoke of doom and gloom while real warriors like Genji got back to work. He directed the sergeant to sort out this weak-willed man, taking the safety off on his rifle.

Down on the slopes, Genji saw the Australians advancing with their khaki-colored uniforms and dark brown hats, which had a strange bend in them. Many of them carried rifles he recognized as British, though others had small submachine guns and still others carried ladders fashioned out of bamboo. Perhaps they intended to use these to scale the cliffs, and pass over their barbed wire. The machine gunner’s Type 96 began to fire, sending short bursts out almost in time with the punishment the engineering sergeant was giving. This spurred the soldier into action, and he took his duties up with the vigor and spirit required of him.

As for himself, Genji picked his targets carefully. The submachine gun he had used on Guadalcanal had not survived the evacuation, and thus he was restricted to the venerable – but very familiar and comfortable – Type 99 rifle. Each shot found its mark, despite withering Australian suppressive fire that Genji was sure would break the will of lesser men. Genji was not a lesser man. He was a warrior forged in the fires of Japan, hardened in China and made a veteran in Guadalcanal. He had seen campaign after campaign, and survived each challenge that his foes had thrown at him. Today was just another such obstacle in his way, a problem to be overcome and a victory to be brought forth in the Emperor’s name.

The machine gunner tossed away an empty magazine, replaced just as quickly by a fresh one provided by his assistant. The sergeant blew a bugle to signal to his company that they needed reinforcements, while Genji continued to track the Australian advance. They had committed an entire company to the attack, but the very position that Genji was occupying was forcing them to pause. Artillery began to fall on them, signaling the beginning of Australian indirect fire. He could further see the enemy had abandoned their bamboo ladders, preferring to climb on hands and knees to reach them. Each man climbing provided a target for Genji, the machine gunner, and the engineer sergeant to take their time and shoot with ease.

“Lieutenant Shimada! Lieutenant Shimada!” Zenyatta’s voice cut through the bombs and gunfire like nothing else, and he crouched low next to Genji with dirt covering his face. His cap was cocked to one side, and he squinted as he tried to see past specks of dirt on his glasses.

“Lieutenant Zenyatta?” Genji asked, pausing to shove a fresh clip of magazine in. “What are you doing?”

“I came to see the situation,” he replied. “The Australians have taken our positions to the northwest. How goes the defense of this sector?”

Genji scoffed, gesturing to the Australians below them as he locked the bolt forward. “Look down there. That is your answer.”

Zenyatta craned his neck, peering over the edge of the parapet to look down on the sheer cliffs that dominated their positions. He pulled back mere seconds later when Australian gunfire and the sights satisfied his curiosity, looking particularly ill. “I see,” he muttered, wiping a tear from his eye. “We should consolidate our men, Lieutenant, and prepare a counterattack as soon as possible.”

“Make it so,” Genji said. “I will stay here and conduct the defense of this position.”

With a sharp nod, Zenyatta braved the artillery to gather the company. The Australians continued to shove their way up the cliffs, some of them getting dangerously close for Genji’s comfort. Each shot from his rifle drove the stock into his shoulder, a feeling he was intimately familiar with, but today it felt like every single shot counted. This was Genji’s first serious action since Guadalcanal, and he would not accept another loss.

The combat raged on, with the Australians getting very close with their shots. The machine gunner sustained a head wound, which slowed him down for a moment as his assistant attempted to administer first aid. In the interim, their machine gun was silent since the engineer sergeant was not willing to take it up. This lack of fire allowed the Australians to advance and only suffer intermittent rifle fire from Genji and the sergeant, until the machine gunner claimed he could still fight. With a bleeding head wound that soaked through his bandages, he took the machine gun back in his hands and kept firing, practically mowing down a group of Australians that pressured them.

Zenyatta reported good and bad news. The men – those still alive and able to fight, at least – were present and accounted for, but the Australians had seized their extensive defensive works to the northwest and threatened the bunker. Genji immediately ordered a counterattack. There was no question about it – the Australians had taken their positions, it was up to him to take them back. Friendly artillery shelled the trenches in preparation for their attack, and after bayonets had been fixed Genji’s company charged.

The Australian rifle fire was accurate, and devastating almost at once. Genji took cover beneath an outcropping, providing equally accurate return fire as his company moved forward. In a cruel twist of fate, the trenches that Genji’s company had abandoned now offered them excellent cover and concealment, as well as preventing easy bombardment. Groaning, Genji watched as his men threw themselves at the Australians, to which their foe simply ground them into dust. This was not the combat he sought. When one of his sergeants found himself cut down by an Australian grenade blast, Genji called off the attack, heading for higher ground elsewhere.

Zenyatta tried to engage Genji multiple times in conversation as the night went on, but Genji refused to oblige him. He contemplated suicide for his failure, and wrote several death poems in preparation for it. The blade on his _wakizashi_ remained sharp, prepared to aid him in ritual suicide if necessary. And yet, his mind still wandered to Hanzo and how his plight over in Europe went. What had happened to his brother? Was he still alive? Did Hanzo spend his nights worrying, reliving the night they had last spoken over and over like a broken record? Or was Genji simply going insane? Some days, Genji could not tell the difference, and that troubled him. His poems reflected the conflicted nature within him, and increasingly Genji found that he was not satisfied with the words he had written.

* * *

_December 28 th, 1943_

_0944 hours_

_Finisterre Range, New Guinea_

Genji knelt before Captain Yada, his face in the bare ground that characterized his headquarters. He had just finished informing the Captain that in payment for yesterday’s failure to stop the Australian advance, Genji was prepared to commit _seppuku_. It seemed logical to him – he was the commander of the men on the front lines, and he had not shoved the Australians back off of their positions, and now their foe had an excellent observation post from which to plan a new attack. Who else could the blame be pinned on, if not him? Zenyatta was not the one to take charge, to assure Captain Yada that they would destroy the Australians in a grand offensive. It was all Genji, and he was ready to face his death.

And yet, thus far Captain Yada had remained silent. His lack of response unnerved Genji. Perhaps he wanted Genji to unsheathe his _wakizashi,_ disembowel himself here and now. Perhaps the error of his mistake had been so great, Genji was a fool to ever ask the question of whether Captain Yada wanted him to perform this fatalistic act on himself. He swallowed, before moving his hand to his _wakizashi._ If Captain Yada would not say so directly, Genji must draw his own conclusions.

“Stop,” Captain Yada commanded, his first words since Genji had thrown himself on the floor.

Genji stayed his hand, increasingly anxious and nervous as to what the Captain’s next words would be. Would he demand a proper death poem? Or would he prefer the ritual to be performed in full, with a last meal and a swordsman to nearly decapitate Genji? He looked up, terrified of what the Captain’s face would tell him.

“Lieutenant Genji Shimada,” he said, almost so quietly he didn’t hear it. “I will not ask you to commit _hara-kiri_ for yesterday’s defense. You acted honorably and with valor. Your leadership honors the Emperor.”

Genji found himself gasping. He had been spared. But why? They had lost a critical position, and casualties meant that any sort of serious counterattack would be delayed. If Genji had been in the Captain’s position, he would have never allowed such a crime to go unpunished. “Captain Yada, you honor me with your immense mercy today!” Genji said, immediately bowing again. “I will not fail you again!”

“I am sure,” Captain Yada said. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant. Attend to your platoon, and ensure your men are prepared for another Australian attack, should it come.”

“Yes, Captain!” Wasting no time, Genji sprung up from his place on the floor, evacuating Captain Yada’s office at once. Just in case he changed his mind, Genji continued to bow deeply as he left. He could leave little else to chance.

On the way back to his own quarters, Genji happened to run into Zenyatta. Understandably, Lieutenant Zenyatta was very confused as to why Genji appeared both shaken and immensely relieved, and questioned him on the subject. He relayed the story, telling Zenyatta of the Captain’s great mercy in face of Genji’s clear dishonor and shame he had brought upon the Special Naval Landing Force and Emperor by allowing the Australians to take their positions. He listened, rubbing his chin and asking minor clarifying questions as Genji went through his tale.

“I see,” Zenyatta finally said when Genji finished. “I wonder why he has seen fit to spare you. Perhaps he believes it will bring chaos upon him. Maybe he wishes to retain your knowledge and skills?”

“What do the _reasons_ behind his mercy matter?” Genji asked. How had he managed to turn this moment of triumph and personal glory for him into a question of philosophy? Did Zenyatta’s hubris know no bounds? “Captain Yada has spared me, is that not enough? You must doubt his words as well?”

Zenyatta chuckled, in the same irritating way he always did, before patting Genji on his shoulder. “I pray that you will understand in time. I must meditate – the battle and planning today’s artillery fire missions have left me tired. I would encourage you to do so as well, Lieutenant.”

With that, the Lieutenant turned and headed back to his quarters, keeping his head low the entire time. Genji scoffed, shaking his head at him. What a fool. There was a war they had to fight and win, and he was over here meditating after a mere half hour of work? Captain Yada claimed he saw something in Zenyatta, but the more the days passed, the less Genji believed it. He sighed, taking leave to his own quarters as well. He had to collect his death poems, perhaps either burn them for being of low quality or stuff them away in his map case, never to be seen again by the light of day. Either option suited him at this point.

* * *

_January 24 th, 1944_

_1738 hours_

_Finisterre Range, New Guinea_

The rain had not stopped for three days. On the 21st, it had given the Australians the perfect cover to advance upon them and charge their positions with bayonets fixed. It had taken mere hours on that first day for them to seize their trenches and strongholds, and as their artillery fell on former defenses, the Australians seemed to laugh at them from beyond the thick void. It felt like a personal attack every time Genji saw a brown slouch hat peer out from the trench walls, a dirty British rifle in front of it. Now, as the explosions rocked the cliffs he had personally dug holes into and rain bounced off his hat, he scowled. They had tried nine times to scale the mountain to take back their positions. Nine times they had failed, cast back into the valley they had sought refuge in and forced to look up at the Australians who jeered them with strange insults and hurled bullets their way.

Next to him, Zenyatta approached, his rifle behind his back. The strap was slack as usual, and the day’s fighting had left him with a tattered sun cover that flopped uselessly as harsh winds stung their faces. “We have new orders,” Zenyatta said simply, handing Genji a note.

He recognized Captain Yada’s handwriting immediately. “We are to retreat? I am surprised.”

“There is no need for further bloodshed today,” Zenyatta said quietly. Were those tears in his eyes, or raindrops that had evaded his eyeglasses? Genji was not sure. Either way, the order came for the platoon to retreat, to head to a position known as Crater Hill.

The march was easy, with their retreat covered by suppressing artillery fire that stopped the Australians from pursuing or observing their new movement. Crater Hill was named such primarily because of the plethora of craters that adorned its surface even before the war here had ever begun, which made it excellent for in-depth defenses. Now, though, Genji looked upon it and found it incredibly depressing. This was not how the war was meant to go. To think that he had started by claiming victory after victory against the Chinese, and now his company suffered loss after loss against the Americans and Australians with no respite.

Their platoon began to settle into their new positions, until two hours later one of Captain Yada’s aides came to retrieve Genji and Zenyatta. He only told them that Captain Yada wished to hold an “important meeting” with them, and refused to speak any further of it. Genji could not deny the Captain his request, and followed the aide to Captain Yada’s new quarters.

Here, he had not set up anything that Genji would have expected from a man who was expected to lead future defenses. It was as barebones as it had to have been when they arrived, with only a simple rug on the floor that he knelt on. Several highly-trusted sergeants stood by, all with grim looks on their faces. Captain Yada looked up at Genji and Zenyatta as they entered, a solemn nod his only acknowledgment of their arrival.

“Captain Yada,” Genji said, bowing deeply. “We are here by your orders. What is it you wish to discuss?”

“Lieutenant Shimada, Lieutenant Zenyatta, I am glad you both have honored me with your presence today. For my failure to properly defend the Emperor’s gains in New Guinea, I have seen no other possible course of action but to commit _hara-kiri_.”

Genji blinked, unsure he had heard Captain Yada correctly. “Captain, I… this cannot be right. Surely, there is-”

“There is no other way,” he said grimly. “Lieutenant Shimada, your skill with the sword is comparable to no other in this unit. I would like for you to play the role of _kaishaku._ Will you honor me by accepting?”

He swallowed, as Zenyatta quietly gasped next to him. This was not just an immense honor – this was a role of ensuring that Captain Yada would die. He would in effect be severing his neck, killing him for good at the moment of agony. Genji nodded, taking a deep breath. “It would honor _me,_ Captain.”

Captain Yada gave a sharp nod, which began the ritual in full. He bathed himself, a way to cleanse his soul and body before death, after which he dressed in a white kimono that he must have had prepared specifically for the occasion. For his last meal, he ate steamed rice with sunomono, primarily crab with rice vinegar. A sanbo provided a platform for a _tanto_ wrapped in a cloth so he would not lose his grip. Genji himself assumed a position just behind Captain Yada, to his left and at a distance that allowed him to reach the Captain with his katana at the right time. As Captain Yada finished the last bites of his final meal, Genji slowly and silently drew his katana from its scabbard, raising it with his right hand above his head. He kept his left hand on the scabbard, holding it in place and preventing noise.

Captain Yada’s death poem had been written out beforehand – this he read for the spectators to enjoy his voice one final time. When he finished this, he opened his kimono and reached for the _tanto_. With the smoothness and precision that Genji had come to expect from his captain, he drew it across his stomach as blood began to drip out of his now open wound. With barely even an inch of movement, he finished the fatal cut and, with blood covering the _tanto’s_ blade, returned it to its spot. This was the time.

Genji stepped forward, letting his blade drop straight through Captain Yada’s neck. He gripped with both hands as metal made contact with skin, giving control to the swing and ensuring it had the proper power to actually cut and not make a mess of the affair. He judged the skin – perfectly enough to allow Captain Yada’s head to remain attached to his body. With the same precision and silent care that had gone into killing his commanding officer, Genji withdrew his blade just as the Captain’s body fell forward.

Slowly, silently, and with the respect and decorum that Captain Yada deserved, Genji shook the blood off of his katana. He knelt towards Captain Yada as, still silently and slowly, he returned his katana to its scabbard. Genji had never been more aware of the sounds, smells and intense emotions within him in all his life before. He felt as if Captain Yada’s energy raged through him, filled him with the confidence to engage any foe he may face in the future. As the spectators returned to life, Genji remained kneeling, maintaining respect for his fallen captain. With a heavy breath and a slow move to stand up, Genji bowed to Captain Yada one final time.

He desperately wanted to say something. Genji tried to conjure forth all the sayings and proverbs he had grown up with, but found himself without words. How could he reconcile the immense loss, the disquiet within him that now threatened to boil over like an unattended pot of rice? Zenyatta seemed to sense this, and left them with a heartrendingly simple saying to cap off their evening.

“Neither fire nor wind,” he said, “birth nor death can erase our good deeds.”


	8. Hard Landing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel takes part in the Peleliu Campaign.

_Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest of valleys. Look on them as your own begotten sons, and they will stand by you even unto death. - Sun Tzu_

_August 20 th, 1944_

_1233 hours_

_Townsville, Australia_

Jack had somehow, against all odds, managed to run into that Marine, Reyes, yet again after their initial meeting back in ‘43. They occupied the same bar now, sitting next to one another as the only people they knew in the entire area. He cradled a warm beer in his hand, while Reyes munched on bar peanuts that he kept complaining were too salty. Reyes wasn’t much of a talker, and the few times Jack tried to engage him, he got simple, clipped answers in response. So, he’d taken himself to looking at details, trying to figure stuff out.

“Your watch is on wrong,” Jack pointed out.

“Huh?” Reyes asked, looking at his wrist. The standard-issue watch, backed with a leather strap and radium markings, didn’t face out. He had kept it inwards, upside-down. “Oh. That’s on purpose.”

Jack blinked. “What kind of purpose?”

“It’s so when I’m fighting fucking Japs,” Reyes growled, “I don’t have to take my hand off my weapon to check the fucking time. Started doing it on Betio.”

“It’s beh-ty-oh, not bay-tie-oh,” Jack corrected.

Reyes furrowed his brow, staring at Jack with a disgusted look on his face. “Oh yeah? And how do _you_ know that, huh? I thought you had never heard of half these places when you shipped out.”

“I mean, it just makes sense. Chief always said it that way, so why wouldn’t it be like that? He’s a smart guy.”

“Whatever,” he scoffed.

“And hey,” Jack said, smirking. “I’m not the guy that fell smack into the sand when the ramps dropped on Betio.”

At this, Reyes’ face immediately tightened. “Bullshit. No way you saw that from your dinky little fucking boat.”

“Didn’t have to. Your buddy Nichols told me all about it.”

“That stupid son of a… you know what, nevermind. It doesn’t matter.”

Reyes shoved another handful of peanuts into his mouth, muttering again how they were far too salty as Jack sipped on his beer. Silence fell between them, filled with the noises of the bar that was alive with music and other guys hanging around, having fun.

“Hey, so,” Reyes asked, somewhat nervously if Jack didn’t know any better. “Your buddy, that Italian. Where’d he go?”

Vince. He hadn’t thought about him for a while. He could remember the day like it was yesterday. They’d nearly been caught together, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Vince had told Jack that he was grateful he’d ever met him, but he was too absorbed in everything Navy that he was afraid if the war ended, he’d never see Jack again. And that wasn’t even in a distance thing, Vince was afraid that Jack would immediately sign on to keep serving and single-handedly start a war somewhere else just so he could keep fighting and stay in the Navy.

And for that alone, Vince had said he could only bear to see Jack if they had to do something on the ship together. Strictly professional.

“We had a bit of a kerfuffle,” Jack muttered reluctantly. “He’s… not gonna be around me much more.”

Reyes stared at him, slowly chewing on a peanut. It felt like he was scrutinizing every word Jack was saying, trying to find a lie or call him out on something. “Sorry to hear that,” he finally said.

“Yeah.” Jack took a long drink of his beer, hoping to drown the pain. “When’d you get those stripes?”

“On Betio,” Reyes said, still pronouncing it wrong. “I never wanted it. Not this way, anyhow.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. “Figured sergeant’s a good thing. More pay, right?”

Reyes sighed, nodding. “Yeah, but… I would have wanted it because they moved up Morrish, not because some Jap sliced him open. It’s just bullshit, is all.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that’s how you got promoted.”

They sat in silence for several moments longer, before Reyes looked at his watch, groaning. “I better get going. They wanna do some kind of rehearsal tomorrow. Guess I’m going to some place called Peleliu.”

“It’s pell-el-yoo, not pell-ay-lyoo.”

* * *

_September 15 th, 1944_

_0832 hours_

_Peleliu, Palau Islands_

Gabriel sighed as their LVT prepared to drop into the water. Massive steel doors rolled down, revealing the horde of similar vehicles and ships all around them. The Jap-held island of Peleliu was ahead of them. He wondered why the hell they were even committing to this god-forsaken rock – place was little more than sand, rocks, and a Jap airfield. Why even throw three full Marine divisions at it?

The waves crashing against their LVT put to bed Gabriel’s musings on military worth and strategy. That wasn’t really his job anyway – leave that to the officers, and not sergeants. Gabriel’s job was just to murder every single Jap between here and Tokyo, and stop anyone who was dumb enough that thought they’d stop _him._ Planes from nearby carriers flew overhead, just like they had on Betio. An uneasy feeling washed over him. This was too similar. Too many good feelings, not enough Jap activity.

As they neared the coral reefs that surrounded Peleliu, he spotted something moving on shore. The Japs had dug in, hiding artillery in the rocks and apparently unscathed by their bombardments. Flashes of light and smoke erupted out of the cliff, throwing rounds at approaching LVTs and Amtracs. They blew up without a second thought, sending pieces of metal and body parts sky-high. _Not again._ Gabriel gritted his teeth, ordering his squad to keep their heads down. Jap machine guns echoed, bouncing off the plate armor of their transports as they inched ever closer.

With a flurry of yelling, confused shouts and rifle fire, the ramp dropped and gave Gabriel’s squad freedom. They’d have to run under naval barrage to get to the beaches, wading through waist-deep water to hit the shore. Explosions rocked the waves behind him, filling his ears with the staccato booms of Jap artillery and LVTs blowing up. Still, Gabriel surged forward into hell, scrambling up the sand and shit to cling on to any sort of cover alongside his squad. He could do little else but stick to cover, occasionally popping out to fire at the Japs with his Thompson.

“Where’s my fucking BAR?!” Gabriel yelled. Nichols should have been around here somewhere. They needed _something_ to fire back at the Japs, and right now the BAR was the best thing around. May as well use the fucking thing. Nichols scrambled next to him, taking cover behind a pile of sand that, so far, was doing an alright job of keeping them safe from bullets. Right behind was one of the newer kids in his squad, a new Marine from Florida named Robinson.

“What’s the plan, Reyes?!” Nichols asked, ducking as Jap machine gun fire raked their little corner of hell.

Gabriel gestured vaguely to the treeline, where brief flashes of Jap rifles peeked out occasionally. “Fuck them up,” he muttered. “Use what you got, just keep them from shooting at us for free.”

“Just gonna waste ammo like that?” Robinson asked. “Fuck, why not just shoot ourselves and save the Japs the trouble? We ain’t getting out of here.”

“You’re not wearing the sergeant stripes, kid,” Reyes barked. “You wanna fucking help? Use your fucking weapon!”

Robinson grumbled, but resigned himself to intermittently popping up to fire back as Nichols sent out bursts against the Japs. Reyes kept to cover, trying to plot out a future course if – and when – the Japs would either disappear into the jungle or be slaughtered by another bombardment. Part of him wanted to slap Robinson around, kid had given him lip ever since they’d formed up in Australia and began rehearsals. Right now, though, he had more pressing matters on his mind, like the Jap machine gun about 300 meters ahead of him. BAR, rifle, and the low pop of a Jap submachine gun surrounded him as he worked out how to attack this position when a lull came in.

A shot whipped past Gabriel’s head, accompanied by a slapping sort of noise that he unfortunately knew too well. He dared to look over, spotting Nichols with his hand on his neck. Bright red blood gushed out of the cracks between his fingers, as his BAR fell to the ground. Soon, Nichols joined it, falling backwards into the sand and gasping quietly.

“Fuck!” Gabriel yelled, ignoring the bullets zipping his way as he knelt next to Nichols. He glanced up, staring at a shocked new Marine. “You! Get the corpsman!”

Nichols stared up at him as Gabriel did his best to retrieve some sulfa powder. It looked like he knew he was to die, and was pleading silently with Gabriel to let him go silently. Gabriel wouldn’t dare allow that to happen. He wasn’t losing one of his best men, not today, not to some random-ass Jap bullet. Not when he could still do something about it.

“Come on Nichols,” Gabriel muttered, tearing open the pouch and daring to move Nichols’ hand. Blood poured out faster than he could even hope to stop, and in an instant the white powder turned to dark red, chunking up and becoming less a powder and more like the wet sand they had been on a few minutes ago. “Come on, don’t fucking die on me, you don’t have permission, you hear me?”

Nichols groaned, a hazy, wheezy breath that lost its true meaning in the chaos of battle. If he was trying to say something to Gabriel, he honestly couldn’t pick it out to save his life. Gabriel looked up again, seeking out the corpsman, but finding nobody. His squad was pinned down, stuck behind various obstacles and whatever they could find that offered protection. Dead bodies littered the beach, staining the white sand stark red as the tide came in and out, spreading the blood around like some cruel angel was mopping up.

“Corpsman!” Gabriel yelled. “Where the _fuck_ are you?!”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Nichols had reached up, his bloodstained hand transferring blood onto Gabriel’s uniform as he stared at him. _This is the end._ That had to have been what he was saying, right? There was no other possible answer in his eyes.

“Hey, it’s alright, buddy,” Gabriel said. “I heard about that pool you guys got going around. How nobody knows shit about me.”

Another gurgle. It felt like Gabriel had taken this bullet just as much as Nichols did. His throat felt scratchy, like somebody had taken sandpaper to it and ground it to dust.

“Well, congratulations, you win the pool. I got five sisters.” He laughed as the look of pain on Nichols’ face transformed to a grimace, a smile that broke even though his own immense pain. “Yeah, I know. Fucking hilarious, right? Yeah, we all lived in LA with my _abuela._ Dad bought it when I was a kid, and mom… well, mom died when I was still pretty young.”

Nichols looked somewhat sorry for him. Hell, it was a good reason why Gabriel had never bothered telling anyone. He didn’t want people going around, feeling sorry for him just because he lost his parents. He’d rather people see him for what he was, the kind of guy that could take anything and come back for more.

“All my sisters are older than me, not by much, maybe a year or two between them. My oldest sister, Serena, she’s got nine years on me. Mónica, she oughta be twenty two by now. Ain’t that a slap in the fucking face, huh?”

He didn’t dare to let himself cry, even when Nichols choked again and violently flicked blood up and out. Gabriel could tell, Nichols was getting weaker and weaker, and losing all this blood wasn’t much helping. If that fucking corpsman didn’t get here and soon, all the blood in Nichols’ body would be on this fucking Jap rock in the middle of fuck-all nowhere. His eyes were glazing over by now, and Gabriel knew his time with Nichols was running short.

“I was gonna teach before this shit started up,” Gabriel blurted out. “Was going to UCLA when the Japs hit Pearl Harbor. I studied fucking English. Can you imagine me, a fucking English teacher?”

Nichols’ face twisted again, and all at once it was like everything stopped. He let out a final, heavy wheeze that felt as if his very soul was leaving his body, and whatever breathing he had been doing beforehand stopped immediately. Nichols stared up to the sky, as if accepting his entrance into Heaven. With a curse that he was sure would make Mom turn over in her grave for the next five years, Gabriel closed his friends eyes, silently wondering if it was possible to mix prayer with profanity.

As if he had stepped into a room for a moment, the sounds of gunfire and explosions came back in force. Robinson finally fucking returned with the corpsman, but they both could tell that they were too late. Gabriel refused to say anything to either of them, simply wiping off the blood from his hands and picking his Thompson back up. He shot Robinson a glare as he settled back into his little nook. Robinson had been too late, wasted a bunch of fucking time, and if he had been quicker on the ball, they wouldn’t have lost their machine gunner.

Gabriel vowed that he would find the Jap responsible, and cut their fucking head off with his own fucking sword. He’d kill every single Jap on this island if he had to.

* * *

_September 16 th, 1944_

_1128 hours_

_Peleliu, Palau Islands_

“Listen up Marines!” Gabriel yelled, shoving a full magazine back into his Thompson. “Fucking maze of Jap trenches and tunnels cover this fucking rock. Those Jap guns still watch the landing point, and you all know what’s going to happen if we don’t knock them out.”

“A fucking bloodbath,” Robinson muttered bitterly.

Gabriel nodded. Dogs hadn’t done much – Japs had their fucking sword-like bayonets on nearly every gun. It wouldn’t surprise Gabriel if they had a ten-inch long blade for their fucking pistols if Tojo thought he could fit it on. Conventional attacks were nearly suicidal. So, now, that only left one option. Burn them out. His squad had gotten a flamethrower, a guy loaned over from a decimated engineering company. “They suspended all landings until these guns are done. So, now we’re gonna go murder every single Jap on this fucking point. Expect close quarters combat.”

Robinson, Baker, Potenza, Kaluza, and Madsen – plus their flamethrower, whose name Gabriel couldn’t remember – formed up. One less without Nicholson, but their numbers were about par with the engineering guy. He was a big fellow, had to be to lug around the flamethrower. He had abandoned wearing his helmet long ago, claiming that if it was his time then it was his time, and no amount of protection could save him in the end. By now, Gabriel had also discarded most of the regulations regarding proper uniform wear, and kept his helmet’s straps slack. He kept his watch upside down as he had on Guadalcanal, allowing him to check the time at a glance. The thick jungle meant he couldn’t easily keep clean and dry socks on hand, so he more often than not went barefoot in his boots.

He brought his mind back to the situation at hand. The Point was ahead of them, a fortress filled to the brim with all sorts of Jap booby traps, motivated Japs, and probably enough machine guns to shoot up half of San Francisco and keep going. Gabriel heard that Marines from the 5th Marines had captured the Jap airfield, but a lot of planes had been shot down before that had happened. They headed towards The Point, with one of these planes in their way.

“Must’ve been shot down this morning,” Madsen said. “Engine’s still smoking.”

“Check it out, but be fucking careful,” Gabriel replied. Looked like they had a bit of a break before heading into combat today. He took the chance to light up a cigarette, puffing away on a Camel he had gotten in one of the K-rations.

Nearby, Robinson slung his rifle on his back, lighting up a cigarette of his own. “Hey, uh, Sergeant. Nichols, they gonna get his body back Stateside?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel answered. “He’s gonna be buried in Arlington, I think. Maybe close to his home, I don’t know. Brass doesn’t tell me shit.”

Shaking his head, Robinson stared at the jungle ahead as Madsen climbed up on the wrecked Corsair. “Still can’t believe he’s gone.”

“Hey, the pilot’s all snarled up on something!” Madsen yelled, fucking around with some kind of belt. Gabriel arched an eyebrow, about to head over when Madsen screamed. _“Grenade!”_

In a flash, Madsen lost his arm and was tossed off the plane. Jap banzai charge came out immediately after. Gabriel threw away the cigarette, opening up in the blink of an eye as Japs began to fall before him. Robinson and Baker were slower on the uptake, but their flamethrower was more than ready to pick up on their slack, setting the Japs on fire without a second thought. He let out only a short burst, preferring to conserve fuel for later. Better he set the banzai charge on fire now, rather than let them get close. The Japs batted and swat at the flames in a mad dance, screaming and shouting _itai_ over and over again as they tried to extinguish the flames to no avail.

The flames crackled and hissed as the Japs fell, combined with the pungent smell of burning flesh and clothing. The Jap rifles were already partially blackened, covered with the remnants of sticky napalm, and the camouflage that the Japs used to hide in the jungle had withered away with the flames, burnt to a mere crisp. Behind him, Gabriel heard the noise of the squad reloading, inserting new clips into their rifles and generally just recovering from the ambush.

“Fuck,” Robinson said. “Can’t believe they’d fucking boobytrap our dead.”

“Believe it,” Gabriel growled. “Come on, we’re going to keep moving. Japs’ll pay for what they did to Madsen.”

“What?” Robinson asked, furrowing his brow. “We’re just gonna leave him here?”

Gabriel marched up to Robinson, staring at him as he tried to figure out if Robinson was just fucking dense or had his head so far up his ass, he’d have to have surgery to remove it. “Did I fucking stutter, Marine? Move. The fuck. Out.”

“It’s not right,” Robinson said. “You didn’t leave Nichols.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me about Nichols,” Gabriel growled. “We’re advancing on The Point, and I don’t care if I have to push you up there my goddamn self, you’re going up there and going _now,_ do you understand me?”

Robinson took a sharp breath, his face hard-set as he stared back at Gabriel. Finally, he nodded, moving past him. “You got it, Sergeant.”

* * *

Machine gun fire raged in Gabriel’s ears, making it hard for him to even hear his own shouting. It was a damn good thing half his men were expert lip-readers, and understood that their mission was to slaughter every single Jap in their way, otherwise he’d really be up shit creek without a paddle. The Japs had pinned them down with a 47mm gun, with some lieutenant tossing smoke grenades out like his life depended on it. Supplies were already critically low, with most of the company machine guns lost in the landing, meaning that their best bet was just to keep their rifles clean and loaded and utilize their Thompsons when needed.

“Smoke’s up!” somebody shouted. A kid from another squad threw grenades like baseballs at the gun, which had now been blinded. A massive explosion erupted. Must have been the 47mm shells blowing up. The Japs flooded out of their little cave hole that had sheltered the gun, on fire and with minor explosions occurring as ammo cooked off on their belts.

“Open fire!” Gabriel shouted, taking the honor of shooting the first Jap that stepped out. The Jap bodies continued to crackle and blow up as they fell, with dozens more falling as they ran out to escape the exploding shells.

Tough fighting consumed the tunnels when Gabriel’s squad moved on to clear the interior. Other elements of the company were around, fighting with the Japs for every inch of this god-forsaken rock. Their flamethrower moved up under harsh fire as they reached a massive interior complex, where the big Jap guns covered the landing zone. The Jap screams were like music to his ears, even better when he watched them try to put out the flames. Gabriel couldn’t help but laugh – did they really think they could beat off fire? The smell of burnt flesh and clothing consumed the bunker the Japs had built as the last few shots were fired. They had taken it, with relatively minor casualties to boot. Somebody was already reporting to the top that they had taken The Point.

“How many Marines have we lost taking this goddamn rock?” Robinson asked.

“Already too many,” Gabriel muttered, lighting up a cigarette.

Gunfire erupted from outside the tunnels. Gabriel, along with his squad, turned heel and raced outside. Jap counterattack. Gabriel immediately joined the defensive line, fighting hard to repel the Jap counterattack. How many fucking Japs were still on this island? It felt like every time they knocked down one set of Japs, two hundred more sprung up to take their place. Calls went down for more ammo, more grenades, more cover, _anything_ to help stem the tide of the Japs and their implacable banzai charges. The first attack lasted for nearly four hours, and by the end of it they stood before piles of Jap corpses in front and behind them.

The sun had begun to set, and it looked like the Japs were retreating for now. Gabriel sighed, shaking his head as the blood-orange sky peeked above the jungle canopy. The iron smell of blood mixed with the bitter noxious stench of burnt flesh as gunpowder stung at his nose. Time to collect up ammo from the dead – friendly and Jap alike. If they kept this up, they’d have to resort to using Jap weapons. Gabriel counted only two magazines for his Thompson, and that was _with_ the magazine he already had in his weapon. It looked like they’d already lost a good handful of Marines – damn good ones, too – holding this place. Time to take stock, reflect.

There was little food to go around. Most of the Jap rations stored inside their fortress had been burned, or rendered inedible by shrapnel or bullets. All they could do now was man the Jap defenses, and hope that another attack wouldn’t come. The few officers who remained said they’d be getting relieved soon, but until then – they should consider themselves cut off, without any friendly support. By the time night fell, Gabriel had managed to scrounge up enough spare magazines to fill up his kit, and whatever Jap ammunition that hadn’t been wrecked was neatly piled up, sitting next to discarded Jap rifles that hadn’t been burned by flames. He tried to sleep, but found it fleeting. No such luck tonight, apparently.

Of course, that idea went out the window entirely when the next Jap attack came. Rifle fire broke out through the night, and Gabriel swore he was shooting at shadows with how infrequently he saw muzzle flashes. Chaos consumed the world as he fought off the Jap attack with his squad, barely conscious of losses. All he did was fight, losing himself to the ritual of shooting and reloading. Another two hours had passed, with the field clear once more as the Japs retreated. He got to sleep for at least a little while, before once again at dawn, the Japs attacked again.

By now, though, their numbers had thinned so much, the only men left standing numbered no more than twenty. The Japs were all around them, ammo was running incredibly low, and panic was setting in. Gabriel tried to keep his squad in line, but it was a losing battle from the word go.

“Oh, fuck this!” Robinson shouted. “We’re fucking surrounded!”

“Don’t fucking panic!” Gabriel yelled back. “We can hold out, just a bit longer!”

“We got like, two clips left each! I’m surrendering, I don’t care what they do to me!”

Without a second thought, Gabriel whipped his Thompson around, pointing it straight at Robinson’s chest. Somebody shouted his name as Robinson froze, staring back at Gabriel. “You’re not crazy enough to shoot me.”

“Shooting you won’t be crazy, Robinson,” Gabriel growled. “It’ll be the sanest thing I’ve _ever_ done. You step off the line, either my bullet will kill you, or a Jap one will.”

“They won’t do that,” he said. “They take prisoners!”

“You’re a fucking idiot! We’re on a rock full of Japs, no friendlies for miles around! You go to the Japs, you’re one of them! I kill Japs and eat them for fucking breakfast, do you understand me?!”

Robinson paused, his eyes flicking between Gabriel’s gun and the approaching Japs. Tension filled the air as seconds ticked down. Gabriel’s trigger finger felt like it was made of rocks, ready to break under the tension and fire a burst into Robinson’s chest at any second. Gunfire crashed into the scene, a comfortably familiar sound.

“Hey, guys!” someone yelled. “The cavalry’s here!”

Gabriel turned his head away, watching the Japs retreat as friendly Marines began storming in, slaughtering the Japs with reckless abandon. He nodded, lowering his gun. “We’ll finish this _discussion_ later,” he growled to Robinson.


	9. A Rising Sun Setting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack continues to fight in the Pacific, while Genji returns to an uncertain future in Japan.

_If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know the enemy but not yourself, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb to every battle. - Sun Tzu_

_October 25 th, 1944_

_0302 hours_

_Somewhere in the Leyte Gulf_

Jack sighed, looking out at the night air. He kind of regretted still being in the Navy, since right now, there was little to shoot at. Jap planes had all but been blown up, and he heard from Mannschmidt that the Japs had lost all their carriers. So why the hell did they still need AA gunners like him? Why couldn’t he do something useful, like working on a carrier to blow up Jap defenses on all the islands they were taking practically hand over fist? Maybe if he was lucky, Jack could practice shooting up the tiny little Jap boats that meandered out from the Philippines. Other than that… it was slow going. And, now, here he was, floating lazily around with nothing else to do.

“Hey, you hear that?” Blackwell asked. Jack strained to hear much of anything other than the ocean, blinking as he looked around. Nothing but the blanket of night for miles around.

“No,” Jack replied. “What am I supposed to be hearing?”

Blackwell kept silent, crouching in the nest. He looked like he was trying to figure it out himself, before he shook his head. “I dunno. Guess I’m hearing shit.”

Another few minutes passed, with Jack growing more and more bored by the minute. It felt like a year or two ago, he had targets aplenty. Now it was just _nothing._ May as well have just been doing exercises off the coast of California.

_“All hands, battle stations,”_ came the call. _“Enemy ships spotted!_ ”

Well, whatever boredom had seeped into Jack’s mind was gone now, shoved out of the way as the USS _Phillip_ swung hard to port. He heard the telltale sounds of their torpedo tubes firing, a huff of steam followed up by a solid _plunk_ as torpedoes hit the water. He wasn’t sure what was going on, other than a massive ship floating their way, accompanied by several more that he could only tell existed by the huge muzzle flashes that erupted from the night. The shells didn’t hit Jack’s ship, thankfully. They splashed all around it, though, sending waves of water up on deck and soaking Jack. Must have been a Jap heavy cruiser or something. He shuddered to think about what would happen if they had scored a good hit.

“ _All hands, be advised, this is a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival is not expected. Godspeed, gentlemen.”_

Jack and Blackwell shared a confused, terrified look. What did _that_ mean? How may Jap ships were there? Guns on board Jack’s ship opened fire as the Jap navy started to roll into view, with a ship larger than any he had ever seen in his life slowly sailing their way. It looked like a Jap battleship, but even bigger and more monstrous than anything else, dwarfing the tiny USS _Phillip._ Scouting planes took off from cruisers and battleships alike, prompting Jack to open fire with his 20mm gun. Not much else he could do – shooting the Jap ships with this was almost like picking on Joe Louis armed with nothing but spitballs. Gunfire from nearby destroyers confirmed to him that at least they weren’t alone in this suicidal attack. He counted at least three other destroyers sailing alongside, attacking the Japs with no regard for their own safety. Anything to protect the flattops, Jack determined.

He could do little else but shoot the scout planes, scoring at least one kill on the Jap floatplane that spiraled out of control, watching the massive Jap guns turn towards the oncoming destroyers. Compared to the _Phillip,_ the big Jap ships were sluggish and slow to respond to incoming torpedoes, while their little destroyer skirted and sailed around like an Olympic runner reaching for the gold. Another massive Jap salvo opened up, sending huge orange-tipped shells flying into one of the friendly destroyers. The shells slammed into the side of the hull, quickly setting one of the destroyers on fire as another salvo struck her. This caused a catastrophic explosion, sending fire and flame sky-high as a massive boom erupted across the ocean. Dull, distant thuds emanated from the Jap ships, a result of their torpedoes that by now had reached their target.

Another salvo flew for them, missing the deck by mere inches. Jack could feel the shell’s heat as it whipped past him, combining with the sound of engines overhead as dawn began to break. The sun was rising, and with it came friendly planes from the carriers Jack was escorting. The Navy planes flew out to the Jap ships, taking AA fire but generally just running unopposed, dropping all manner of munitions on the Jap ships as explosions cascaded, combined, and came together into a confused cacophony of sound. Within seconds, another destroyer was sunk, even as smokescreens were deployed and they tried to obfuscate themselves against the Jap guns. Slowly, Jack’s ship turned tail from the battle, running into the smoke and away from the gunfire and explosions. Apparently, against all odds, they had survived. Just before they ran into the smoke, Jack watched the Jap ships start to turn away as well. It looked like both sides had elected to retire.

Jack collapsed in the nest, finding himself exhausted even though he had scarcely done anything. The sun had risen by now, shining down on them as the pillars of smoke rose above their white screen, reminding Jack of the chaos they had just endured. Nothing felt right anymore. How was he supposed to carry on like this? If the Japs could just waltz out of the ocean blue and nail three destroyers in the span of a few hours, what would it be like when they had to take the main Jap islands? Everyone knew it would be coming, that they’d escort the Army and Marines to Japan, fight them for a penultimate last stand.

And, if that huge Jap battleship was still floating by then, Jack feared it would just look at the _Phillip_ and sink it with a single round. He looked to the sky, as if it would give him some way to be comfortable with the chaos and stress that was in him right now. This wasn’t right. The war was supposed to be over, but all it was promising was more death, one that seemed to be coming head-on for Jack. In the past, when he was fighting off Guadalcanal and Midway, death seemed like this distant, implausible thing. And yet, right here and now, Jack was confronting the very plausible reality that he may find himself killed on board this ship.

He hadn’t written Mom in a while. He ought to do that again.

* * *

_November 20 th, 1944_

_1147 hours_

_Hanamura District, Kyoto, Japan_

Returning to Japan did not bring Genji the peace he desperately sought. Following Captain Yada’s _seppuku,_ the remnants of his company were sent back to Japan to rest, refit, and potentially train future defenders of the Empire. It was a grim order that seemed at odds with the hubris he heard from the Army’s daily recruitment dispatches that rolled past the ruins of Kyoto. _Join the Army,_ they said, using loudspeakers fitted to cars. _Together, destroy the Americans in a divine wind._ How could they deliver a divine wind when American bombers hovered overhead, dropping bombs on Japan so often that they had now run out of targets to even shoot at? Genji had seen the payloads that Yankee planes carried now. They were not bombs, but pieces of paper. They were written in Japanese, pleas for the Japanese people to surrender rather than continue this pointless war.

On one hand, Genji could see their arguments. After all, he had spent months on various islands, fighting and watching good Japanese soldiers and sailors die pointless, avoidable deaths. Even Hanamura, a place Genji believed to be sacred, was not safe from the war. He had grown up here, watched the cherry blossoms fall what felt like a few months ago. But now, now it was rank with the stench of death, something he was finding himself uncomfortably intimate with. Burnt wood supported ribbons of canvas awnings that stubbornly held on despite nature and man’s attempts to throw them off, while the eerie skeletal remains of buildings stood defiant against Yankee bombs, enduring the hellfire that came each morning. People scarcely reacted to the air raid sirens, silently marching to the bunkers, resigned to their fate. It did not seem like a population of people ready to die for the Emperor.

Genji blinked, wondering how he had managed to wander from the temple and back. Zenyatta’s Buddhist temple had somehow been safe from the bombings, still standing in spite of the burnt walls that bore the scars of previous attacks. Aside from the stumps of trees cut down long ago to make last-ditch weapons, it didn’t look like the temple had ever been involved in the war. It looked as pristine as it no doubt had been in 1936. Just like he had been for weeks, Zenyatta stood outside the gates, tending a hanging garden that he kept just outside the grounds. _Swords to plowshares,_ Zenyatta told him when they returned to Japan and Genji first saw the temple.

Back then, Genji did not understand. He still didn’t think he understood. At first, Genji sought refuge in his home, but when it was annihilated by a Yankee bomb after he sat with a fellow lieutenant for tea in town, he sought out lodging elsewhere. Despite all that he had done, the threats, the violence, the childish arrogance that Genji realized defined him, Zenyatta welcomed him with open arms to his temple. It surprised him at first – after all, Genji could clearly remember when he had held his _wakizashi_ to Zenyatta’s chest in Guadalcanal all those years ago. If he were in Zenyatta’s shoes, Genji would never let a man like that back in his life. And yet, Zenyatta acted as if nothing had even changed between them, that they were still the same men that they were when they had first met in 1941.

Today, though, Zenyatta seemed to have something else on his mind. “Ah, Genji. You have returned. I was hoping to see you again today.” In July, when Genji had spent four months here, Zenyatta insisted that formality was not necessary, and thus constantly told him that addressing each other with Lieutenant and their surnames was clumsy. Far better to be before the grace of the temple and its tranquility in their most unabashed versions of themselves, he said. It took Genji some time to get used to, for sure, but there was always a sense of comfort and familiarity upon returning here that he could not understand the cause of.

“Zenyatta,” he said, nodding his head. And yet, even with all that, Genji only knew this man as Zenyatta. He rejected his birth name of Ikki Masuyama, stating that he saw no real need for it. He had been reborn since then. “Tending your garden once again, I see.”

“We must value all life, for every soul is precious,” he said, smiling as he looked upon the plants, wilting and fading away though they were. “Much like we do in our lives, these plants are now dying, but they will be reborn in the coming spring. Which is why I am glad you have come here, Genji.”

“Admittedly, I did not have elsewhere to go,” Genji said. “Much of Kyoto is gone. Yankee bombs.”

“Yes, very disheartening. I have prayed every day for a swift end to this war. But you are changing the subject – you do not want to ask me why I am glad to see you.”

Genji drew a sharp breath, biting his cheek. “Well, the meaning behind your words did cross my mind.”

“Genji, you have been in my company for nearly eight months. I sense great chaos within you, and yet your time in the temple has not helped you. May I ask why?”

It was a question that Genji did not have an answer for. He sought the answer himself several times, trying to match the way Zenyatta meditated. When that didn’t work, he practiced his swordsmanship, but found the play strikes and invisible enemies lacking. It was more like a rehearsed dance that he had spent too long on, a play with no audience to clap for him. Poetry sometimes brought him satisfaction, but the words he wrote were stifled, wooden compared to the flowing beauty Zenyatta often produced in far less time.

“I don’t know,” Genji finally admitted. “I have sought that answer myself.”

Zenyatta looked at him sympathetically, gesturing for Genji to follow him through the temple’s gardens. The skies were cloudy, gray this year with a very late snow. Part of Genji wished the snow _would_ come, if only to cover up the horror of Yankee bombers. “Have you perhaps considered that you are asking the wrong question?”

“Then I am afraid I don’t know what question I am supposed to ask,” Genji replied.

“Let me ask you this,” Zenyatta said, folding his arms behind him as they walked. “In 1941, you were a man who had just come back from China. We met not far from here, in Captain Yada’s headquarters in the center of the city. Do you remember?”

Genji smiled. “Yes. The snow was very early that year, and it was just two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor that began this entire escapade for us.”

“You were a very headstrong man, who had experienced much in a very short lifetime. Captain Yada told me he had chosen you specifically because you were an excellent swordsman. Why do you think doing your duty to Captain Yada has caused such a change in your attitude?”

He paused, letting out a slow and heavy stream of air. How could he reconcile the two images of himself in his mind? On one hand, Genji Shimada was one of Japan’s best warriors, a man dedicated wholly to serving the Emperor without question or hesitation. But on the other, since watching so many good men die, including Captain Yada, he had seen the war for what it truly was.

“Life is not like the stories my father told my brother Hanzo and I,” Genji finally said. “I grew up believing that the stories father told us of valor when fighting the Chinese were true. That when and if we joined the military, we would bring glory to Japan or die trying.”

Zenyatta hummed, quietly leading Genji to the interior of the temple, where they escaped the cold to have warm tea. “I can tell your outlook has changed, has it not? Since that day in 1941.”

“Yes,” Genji said, nodding as he sipped on the tea. “I believed my father, and… I was angry. Very angry.”

Zenyatta tiled his head curiously, staring at Genji. The look on his face was somewhere between confusion and curiosity, matched with the same gentle eyes that scrutinized every man in the platoon. “Anger for whom, or what?”

“At first, the Americans,” Genji replied. “Or… well, my brother at first.”

“And what did Hanzo do to earn your ire?”

Genji chuckled, smiling for the first time in a long while. He could scarcely remember when he had done this last. “What _didn’t_ we do? We were as argumentative as brothers always are. Hanzo would have inherited the Shimada _zaibatsu_ , building rifles and cannons for the Imperial military had he not been dispatched to Europe. I… well, I would have found my place, I am sure, but father did not see it that way, and neither did Hanzo.” Zenyatta’s simple gesture for him to go on prompted Genji to continue after another sip of tea. “Hanzo would tell you that I lived a life of excess, counter to the imperial austerity that the Emperor has demanded of us. In truth, he was jealous. He saw that I was building a network, a life outside of the _zaibatsu_. For me, the business was never everything. I wanted to learn.”

“And this put you in conflict with him,” Zenyatta surmised.

“Indeed. Hanzo believed that he was superior, because he was an excellent marksman and, had he not accepted the commission, would have been a fine sniper. He told me that practicing with my sword was foolish, a child’s errand, and that the age of the sword and samurai was over. He believed in the power of the rifle, and hated my association with some of Japan’s finest swordsmen.”

Zenyatta put his now-empty cup down, taking one hand and refilling it to his liking. “If you do not mind my saying so, it sounds to me that your brother had just as much chaos within him as you do now.”

“He attempted to kill me,” Genji declared flatly. “Planted a bomb under my home. When it failed, he sought repentance. I told him that I would kill him if I saw him again, and that was… perhaps two months before he was sent to Germany, to observe how the Germans fought their war against the Russians.”

“You say Hanzo was your first declared enemy. Who else have you hated? You may yet find a way to seek justice for the wrong actions you have taken.”

“The Americans. The British. The Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders. Take your pick. I cannot find justice. I have slaughtered for a cause I believed was holy, but as the noose tightens around our empire, I find that there is no holiness to be found.”

Zenyatta smiled, taking a long drink of his tea with his eyes closed. When he opened them again, it looked like he had found a new understanding, a clarity that Genji desperately wished he could have as well. “You are wise beyond your years, Genji. A masterful student, if I dare to say so. Yes, you are correct that you cannot right the wrongs of the past.”

At this, Genji sighed heavily, bowing deeply as if that would help him. “I want to find peace, but peace is fleeting. Each time I attempt to find it, it eludes me.”

“Peace is not something one obtains simply,” Zenyatta said. “It is a product of hard work, and struggles that do not always make sense to us. I do not think that you are a stranger to hard work, Genji. The way that I have seen you fight for the Emperor tells me as much.”

“Living a soldier’s life is no way to find peace,” Genji declared, rising up from his position.

“Is it not? I have found eternal peace in my life, and every day I learn more about my role in the world.” Zenyatta swept his hand around grandly, as if referring to the entire Japanese home islands. “This land has a beauty, even in its destruction. I posit that despite your anger, your chaos, you can find peace. You must find a way to confront your anger, and strike it down like the monster it is.”

“How can I do this?” Genji asked. “I cannot conjure an emotion forth like the tales my father told me of dragons and demons.”

“You must work to correct the wrongs you have inflicted upon your enemies,” Zenyatta said. “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”

The question struck Genji as odd, and he furrowed his brow. What did that mean? Was this some sort of philosophical question he wasn’t aware of? “I see myself,” Genji replied, confused.

“Yes, but what do you see when you look deep inside yourself, in the mirror of self-reflection and assessment?”

Genji paused, taking a deep breath in. “I see an unchecked monster, who was sent to kill and did his job without question or hesitation. I see a madman that was given permission to do what he believed necessary.”

“That is the crux of your chaos,” Zenyatta said. “You must confront yourself, turn your greatest enemy – yourself – into a valuable ally. Only then will you be able to ever find peace.”

Blinking, Genji paused to think on this. Confront himself, turn his own self-hatred into an alliance against the chaos he had created? How was this possible? No doubt he would have to spend a great deal of time thinking, meditating, and dedicating himself to poetry. But poems about being a good person, and acting like a good person, were two incredibly different things. “Zenyatta,” he finally asked, now that he had taken a moment to reflect on it. “How can I reconcile my future path with my past? How will the world see me after I killed Captain Yada?”

“You did not kill Captain Yada,” Zenyatta said, looking at him curiously. “Captain Yada killed himself. You merely severed the cord that attached him to this mortal realm. I am sure that he thanks you for your help. After all, he _did_ ask you to act as his _kaishaku,_ did he not?”

Genji stared back at him, his brow furrowed. “What difference does that make? He is still dead by my hand.”

“And yet, had it not have been for your steady hands, Captain Yada would have suffered from the wounds he inflicted on himself. It would have been a longer, much more painful death, I am sure. One filled with agony and suffering. You put an end to any pain he would have had to endure for the rest of his life, Genji. That is not murder. That is mercy.”

He paused, blinking as he sat straight back up. Part of Genji wanted to declare that Zenyatta had lost all reason and intellect, and yet another part of him began to think that he was right. It was a cognitive dissonance that he couldn’t help but see the inherent contradiction in. He bowed again to Zenyatta, taking his leave to attempt to meditate once more. Perhaps, armed with the new knowledge he had, Genji could find peace.

As he stepped outside and slipped his coat on, Genji looked to the skies. The clouds were depositing fresh flakes of snow, sending flurries down in a beautiful cascade. Each one danced and floated with an almost carefree precision, gently falling down to the ground exactly like he had seen before leaving for New Guinea. Genji held out his hand, watching a snowflake land on it and instantly disappear. All at once, he again was reminded of Hanzo and his conspicuous lack of letters. By now, he had given up hope that the Allied navy would ever allow letters from Japan to reach Germany, and yet… a part of him remained optimistic about it, strong in the belief that the warrior’s spirit ensconced in Hanzo’s letters could carry them through any storm, and deliver them to Genji’s hands. Perhaps that was the divine wind Genji desperately sought. Not a wind to sink the American navy, or cast Yankee and British invaders into the ocean, but a wind that would make Hanzo’s letter of reconciliation to Genji float down like these snowflakes.

Much like the snowflakes however, the vision Genji had of the letter disappeared and faded the moment it touched his hand.


	10. Divine Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the war is closer than Jack or Gabriel realize.

_To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. - Sun Tzu_

_December 16 th, 1944_

_1138 hours_

_Aboard the USS Phillip, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean_

Gabriel Reyes sighed, dragging a face across his hand as he tried to pull himself from sleep. He had been on the USS _Phillip_ for somewhere close to a week, following a promise that ships like this were heading home soon. After all, everyone said, after Peleliu the war was over. The Japs were on their last legs, about to collapse and fall apart any second. Hell, the Nazis were roundabout the same over in Europe, if he wanted to believe what _Stars and Stripes_ wrote. And yet, here he was, floating around with a bunch of squids that didn’t even want him here in the first place. Gabriel passed the time that he now had plenty of by cleaning his rifle, reading what few books and magazines he had managed to bring with him, and playing cards with off-duty squids. Admittedly, he sucked at every game they played, but he never bet real money. Not anymore.

Of course, living on this ship would be a lot less hellish if he didn’t have to keep running into fucking Morrison all the fucking time. The tight confines of this tiny little destroyer made it literally impossible, and every other day Gabriel had to see his stupid tattoos, hear his dumb fucking laugh, and listen to the smattering of absurd Navy colloquialisms that he used with reckless abandon. It was almost like Gabriel had joined an entirely different military, and was trying to learn a second language ad-hoc.

At least the food was better than any K-ration. That was the main benefit he had, aside from not having to worry about the Japs killing him and his buddies in the night. Gabriel had just taken a step out to smoke, get some relief from being cooped up inside the ship all day, when who else but Morrison strolled up next to him. He wore his stupid little white hat, complementing his blue uniform and finishing it off with a grin that Gabriel was entirely sure belonged to someone who’d been knocked in the head a few too many times.

“What do you want?” Gabriel growled.

Morrison’s smile faded, as he arched an eyebrow. “Jeez, just saying hello. Why do you hate me?”

“I don’t hate you,” Gabriel replied, letting out a puff of smoke. “I hate the things you do.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“I’m betting your first girlfriend was the US Navy Rules and Regulations Manual,” Gabriel said dryly. “Let me tell you, that isn’t a way to win the girls back home, pal.”

Morrison shifted uncomfortably, before nervously coughing. “So, I hear we’re going to Australia after this patrol.”

“That right?” Gabriel muttered, tossing away his finished cigarette. “Wish we’d go back Stateside. I’ve had enough of the Pacific.”

“Well, at least we’ll have good eating in Australia! Because of all the sandwiches there,” Morrison said, his stupid fucking grin coming back in force. “Get it?”

Gabriel furrowed his brow, staring at Morrison like he suddenly had three heads. Hell, maybe he _did._ “No,” Gabriel said, slack-jawed. “No, I don’t get it at all. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Because of all the _sand which is there!_ ” Morrison said, barely even able to contain his laughter. Wow. That was his comedic genius, a terrible pun that he had to spell out so obviously nobody could miss it. Gabriel blinked, feeling his eyebrow twitch. _This_ was the man he was stuck with for god-knows how long. He almost wished he was back in that Jap camp.

“Morrison,” Gabriel said slowly and quietly. “It’s a long way to Australia. If I see you on that trip, I’m throwing you overboard.”

“Alright, alright, bad joke,” Morrison said, holding his hands up as if conceding to him. He joined Gabriel in leaning on the rail, watching the ocean pass by. All things considered, it looked peaceful. Maybe this was finally the sign of good things coming his way, Gabriel thought. Maybe for once, the world was going to give him a break.

“We aren’t friends, you know,” Gabriel said, avoiding Morrison’s gaze.

“Didn’t think we were,” Morrison replied. “What are you gonna do when the war’s over?”

Gabriel scoffed, shaking his head. “What makes you think the war’s gonna end anytime soon?”

“Has to,” Morrison said, shrugging. “I haven’t seen a Jap ship for over a month. _Stars and Stripes_ says they’re on their last legs.”

“You believe everything you read in the paper?”

Gabriel remembered seeing that same article. He’d read it the same day he’d gotten off Peleliu, after what felt like years of hellish, hard fighting. The Japs had fought like they were possessed, sucking away everything that the Marines sent in from men to materials. He’d watched a lot of guys go in, and not a whole lot come out. The ones that did always lost something – finger, arm, leg, toe, or maybe their mind just broke. The new guys always stared at Gabriel like he was some kind of monster, and the way the guys on this ship stared at him? Gabriel began to believe he really _was_ one. He wondered if he had the same hollow-eyed, vacant look on his face that some of the other sergeants he knew kept affixed to their faces.

Next to him, Morrison shrugged again, throwing his palms up. “We’ve all got to believe in something. Me, it’s God and knowing the war’s gonna end soon.”

“You seem pretty optimistic about that.”

“Gotta be. It’s the only thing stopping me from going crazy.”

Slowly, the bright sky began to fade, covered up by bulbous clouds. To Gabriel, they looked like the hunks of dirt and rock that an artillery barrage always tossed around, mixing with dark clouds that he was sure signaled an oncoming storm. Guess he’d just have to hang around inside for a while if rain hit.

Morrison tapped the side of his arm, to which Gabriel turned to face him, furrowing his brow. “What about you?”

“What about me _what?_ ” Gabriel asked.

“What keeps you going?”

Gabriel stared back at Morrison, wondering where in the fuck this squid had gotten the audacity to talk to him like he was some kind of a friend. Hadn’t they just settled this about ten seconds ago? “Why do you care?”

“Well, we’re gonna be on this ship for a few months, at least. May as well find out more about you.”

For a moment, Gabriel’s brain short-circuited. This didn’t make any sense. Here this clown was, saying the war could end at any moment, and he wanted to make friends with him _now?_ “Okay, I’m gonna ask again because it sounds like you have water in your ears. Why do you care?”

“Dammit, maybe I just want to know, alright? You never know when people are gonna show up places.”

He sighed, shaking his head. Morrison looked pretty insistent about it. Well, what the hell. It wasn’t like he was ever going to see this squid ever again in his life. “Grew up in Los Angeles with my parents. Five sisters. Dad died in Utah, mom died when I was still pretty young.”

“Utah?” Morrison asked, confused. “What happened there?”

“Indians holed themselves up in a mountain, government sent up some troops to deal with them. Indians opened fire, and there goes my dad. Bullet to the head.”

Morrison coughed, looking down. “Sorry to hear that.”

“Happened twenty years ago. I don’t care anymore. What’s done is done, shit’s in the past.”

“I dunno, I think I’d still be pretty broken up about it if _my_ dad died. He’s been there my whole life.”

Gabriel sighed, looking down at the wake that the ship was churning up below them. Something about it seemed peaceful, despite the chaos inherent with it. It almost made him want to dive in, forget about the war forever. “Yeah, well, that’s how it is sometimes. Things break, people die.”

“You a praying man?” Morrison asked.

“Catholic, like my _abuela_ raised me to be.”

Morrison stared at him blankly. “Your what?”

“Grandma,” Gabriel clarified. “She raised all us kids, bless her soul. Shit, it’s been a long time since I’ve been a fucking human like this. You know what it’s like out there?”

“Looked tough.”

“Fucking hell on earth,” Gabriel muttered. In a blink, it felt like he had gone back to Guadalcanal, soaked to the bone and freezing cold. It was as if he could still smell the rotting Jap corpses, hear them playing their bugles and calling _banzai_ , fixing invisible bayonets and sharpening swords. Even out here, in the ocean and far away from anything, Gabriel feared a Jap attack at any second.

“I’m fucking done,” Gabriel said, turning away to head back into the ship. Better to withdraw into the rack he had stolen, hide away from the world than face it and reveal himself for what he really was. He collapsed in the bed, finding it far too stiff for his liking. He sighed, dragging his hands over his face as if that’d wipe the horrors he’d seen off his face. Maybe the horrific look on his face was already set in stone, and Gabriel was doing nothing but applying washes to himself, masking the monster that always came out when the shooting started.

Maybe sleep would make him feel better. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe, if he fell asleep, he’d hear the screams of dying Japs, hear the crackle of their flesh and uniforms as they hit the ground.

* * *

_December 17 th, 1944_

_1224 hours_

_Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean_

Gabriel was woken up by somebody banging on the overheads, a chief by the looks of it. Gabriel and a handful of dead-tired squids were the only ones around, each one harassed by the Chief. All hands get up, he ordered, even Gabriel. In response, he groaned and rolled over. “Fuck you,” he muttered. “I’m not part of this ship.”

“You are now, Marine!” the chief yelled. “What part of ‘all hands on deck’ is confusing you?”

He groaned, shaking his head as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. Someone gave him a poncho, which he slipped on. Through the open hatch, Gabriel watched massive waves fly up and slam into the side of the ship, spewing white foam everywhere. Howling rain pelted at his face even with the poncho – which he was finding was increasingly useless – as he clawed his way to a vague direction by the chiefs. They needed help refueling, they said. Help us out.

The USS _Phillip_ swayed and rocked, feeling like it was throwing him up and down with each passing tide. Gabriel had been in rough seas before, but this was something else entirely. There was an overwhelming dread consuming Gabriel, but he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. This storm shouldn’t have been anything too horrible to weather, right? They had to have a way out of this. Navy did this kind of thing all the time. Gabriel shuddered as more rain slapped him in the face, nearing the end of the line. Morrison was here, trying to tie a line to the ship while keeping his footing.

“Hey, corn boy!” Gabriel yelled, doing his best to make himself heard over the howling wind. “What do you need me to do?”

Morrison grunted, looking up with a confused look on his face. “Hold that line down, help me tie this thing!”

Kneeling down – and quickly sliding as the _Phillip_ rocked hard port – Gabriel did his best to keep hold of the line. So far, it wasn’t working. He and Morrison traded curses and shouts of exasperation, and yet they still managed to get the line secured and tied down. A ship rolled up next to them, an oiler by the looks of it. The oiler crew lobbed long green lines over, which they barely were able to catch. Morrison walked him through the procedure of fixing the line in place, and together they manage to just barely latch it on. Now, they could get desperately needed fuel in.

Except Gabriel watched the line snap like a fucking twig in front of him. Another round of bristly wind shook him to the core. Slowly, the oiler got closer and closer.

“Brace!” Morrison shouted. Horrific grinding and groaning metal replaced the sound of wind, and when the two ships separated once more, Gabriel could see a massive gash in the side of the oiler’s hull. This turned out to only be the first. Gabriel and Morrison tried again two more times to attach the hose to deliver precious fuel to their nearly-empty vessel, but each time they got farther and farther away from their goal. A second collision with the oiler suspended any ideas of trying to do parallel refueling, so he and Morrison, along with the rest of the refueling gang, headed to the stern. There, they attempted the same procedure, only to find no success. Somebody braved the storm to call off the refueling. Now, all they could do was go back in while the deck gang lashed down anything loose, shoving what they could below decks. There’d be no fighting Japs today. Batten down the hatches, sit tight, and then hurry up to wait.

* * *

_December 18 th, 1944_

_0248 hours_

_Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean_

Jack was thrown off his rack, despite having lashed himself to it with belts. He banged his head on the bunk opposite of him, rubbing his head as he looked for some way to orient himself upright. The lights had gone out, while someone with a light went up and down the path helping people up. It looked like for all their preparations, seawater had still made it inside and knocked out their electronics.

“Cap’n wants a deck crew together!” somebody yelled. “We gotta secure the whaleboat!”

“We’re gonna do _what_ now?!” Jack shouted back.

“ _Loose boat!_ ” the unknown sailor yelled. “Captain wants it back!”

“In this fucking weather?!” Chief Williams asked. “Tell him he’s nuts, don your life vests, gentlemen!”

Somewhat resigned, Jack donned his life vest. A handful of other sailors and their resident Marine, Reyes, gathered themselves up to attempt to recover the boat. They weathered the disaster looming outside, where the haze of the oncoming storm made visibility zero-zero. He could barely see the bow of the _Phillip_ ahead of him, much less try to recover a boat that’d somehow gotten loose. As the deck crew tried to lash themselves to the ship to work their way upstream, a horrible groaning noise erupted, accompanied by a hissing noise that sounded like a massive vacuum cleaner to Jack. Metal snapped, broke and otherwise heaved. Jack looked up to see the motor whaleboat shear straight off its mounting.

“Oh fuck!” Reyes yelled, diving out of the way. Jack followed suit, but others in the work party were not so lucky. The boat crashed first into some torpedo tubes, before flinging a handful of sailors off the deck with it as it disappeared into the wall of ocean around them. Jack realized as he looked around, terrified out of his mind, that the USS _Phillip_ was locked in irons, totally unable to reverse course or do anything but weather the storm and sail full steam ahead.

“Morrison!” Reyes shouted. “ _Morrison!_ What the _fuck_ do we do?!”

Jack blinked, blanking. His training had never prepared him for this. He knew how to handle storms, but not how to get out of the eye of a storm that threatened to swallow them wholesale and leave their ship at the bottom of the ocean, with nobody to keep them company but Davy Jones. “I… I can’t swim,” Jack admitted. “I can’t swim, Reyes.”

The Marine stared back at him, mouth agape. “ _What?!_ ”

“I tried to learn, but I never got a hold of it, and I just…”

“You got a life jacket, don’t you?!” Reyes yelled, pointing to the raging ocean just to their left. “Who the Hell do you think is gonna swim in _that_ anyway?!”

Jack, stifling panicked breaths, nodded. Well, hell, they couldn’t do much else now. They had failed in trying to get the whaleboat back. They turned around, heading back in with other members of the decimated work party, where they sealed the hatch tightly behind them. The noise of water and rain banging against the steel, like a divine water spirit impossibly vexed with them, was impossible to ignore. Jack could do nothing but eat a cold bacon sandwich, hoping that they made it out of this storm alright.

* * *

Sleep proved impossible. Jack spent his time alternating between trying to find some way to calm himself down, and helping other sailors fight the flooding. So far, neither was working. Anyone with half a brain knew it – the _Phillip_ was sinking. The screaming rain, constant abuse from the sea, and grim fate of being locked in irons with nearly no way out all combined to paint a picture Jack didn’t like one bit. They had been rolling back and forth to degrees Jack thought impossible – Hell, he was sure they had rolled to 90 degrees at one point – throwing men and material back and forth like someone was taking a box of toys and rattling them around.

Thus, life vests were on, panic was setting in, and it was all they could do to keep themselves organized and collected while they did their best to abandon ship. It was suicide trying to stay on a dead ship, they realized, and slowly they formed groups to find their way topside. After all, rather to brave the sea instead of dying with a sinking ship. With the orderly experience that they trained and adhered to all their life, Jack, Reyes and Blackwell clawed their way topside, just trying to survive. Secretly, Jack wondered if they could ever survive out on the ocean. No life raft, no emergency rations, no fresh water…

No hope.

They shoved their way up and out of the ship onto the deck, or what remained of it anyway. The rushing winds and impossibly high waves galvanized Jack into action, as he flopped himself onto the side of the deck, pulling Reyes and Blackwell out.

“Keep moving!” Blackwell shouted above the wind. “Don’t get stuck!”

Jack slipped on the ship’s structures, hitting the deck hard. The rain was making it almost impossible to get a grip on anything, and a wave crashed into them. Jack found himself sprawled out on the ship, with Reyes ahead of him. Blackwell was shouting something, but over the roaring wind he couldn’t hear it. Jack turned his head, spotting Blackwell struggling to stand up. Just as he got back on his feet, one of the 5 inch gun turrets swiveled around violently, removing Blackwell’s top half in a spray of blood and sea foam. Jack felt his eyes grow wide as Reyes started pulling him further towards the bow. No time to mourn. He had to get off this ship and fast.

He and Reyes leaped over a gap, and for a moment Jack was terrified that a wave would knock them right out of the air and into the raging sea. Groaning metal, the distant calls of terrified men, and the rushing sound of water all mixed and made it impossible for Jack to so much as hear himself think. Another strong gust of wind threatened to blow them overboard before they were even close to ready. Jack watched Reyes swept off his feet. He leaped over, grabbing on to Reyes’ outstretched hand while Jack held on tightly to an improbably secure line with the other. He could feel his knuckles going white, almost afraid that at any second they’d burst through the skin at any second.

“Hang on!” Jack shouted. “We’re making it out of this okay!”

Reyes tried to hang on, latching his other hand to Jack’s arm. His muscles strained against the effort to keep Reyes steady, pulling with all his might to get him back to relatively safe ground. Jack stared into his deep brown eyes, and saw a man who had faced the worst the Japs had ever thrown at him, now terrified out of his mind. Who could blame him? Jack was scared shitless. He took a deep breath in, swallowing seawater alongside it, feeling every bone and muscle in his body cry out in agony as he pulled Reyes closer.

In a split second, however, his grip slipped. Jack could do nothing but watch as Reyes’ hand fell from his own, and with a wide-eyed look of terror, Reyes was plucked away from him. His screams faded into the distance and died as he disappeared into the rain and saltwater. Jack sat there, still hanging on for dear life to the line. He cursed God, the sea, Admiral Halsey and everyone he could think of who might have had even a small part to blame in this madness. Why him? He was supposed to help his buddies get out of this safe, not get caught in a storm of Biblical proportions.

Jack screamed, cursing as he pounded on the side of the ship. The _Phillip_ rolled over again, just in time for Jack to watch a massive wave rise up. It had to be at least ninety feet tall, right? The wave was higher than the _Phillip’s_ crow’s nest, and her radar antennas and surveillance systems were long gone. He considered it a minor miracle that the entire top deck hadn’t been sheared off in the storm. The wave hit him before he could even blink, churning him under pitch-black water as he struggled to figure out which way was up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends another WWII fic! Thank you to everyone who's read, and special thanks to Coyote and TinyOctopus for helping me figure out how to properly torture Jack and Gabriel while also indulging my absurd questions!


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